Riding The Bus To My Father
By
John I. Blair
Here I sit on an
Intercity bus
Riding through Oklahoma at night
With a copy of The Mysteries of Winterthurn
By Joyce Carol Oates
In my lap, opened to page 137.
My father is dying in a hospital in Kansas.
I am going to see him,
And this is the way I am
Passing time on the road.
I haven’t been on a bus in years
And had forgotten just how
Lonely you can let yourself be
Riding through the
Dark and empty countryside
With no one else on board
But the women in the front seats,
The four men in the back and,
Of course, the driver.
But my loneliness does not
Equal that of my father right now.
He is on his own dark and empty road
To a place that most certainly
Is not Kansas
And would be glad to chat
With the women in the front seats,
As I am not.
© 2002 John I. Blair
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