bus stop

pasty grub-white boys talking about how kills

in level three turn to ash and blow away

hustler says he's got ten or fifteen phones

he needs to sell because every time he needs shoes

it costs two hundred bucks,

but they ain't much to boast about

he tries to hook up

with the woman sitting up against the cyclone fence

at the back of  the sidewalk:

-your program locks you up at night?

-nah, we just have to be back in by eleven.

-but they lock you in?

-no. we got house monitors.

-im coming over tonight.

-no you're not, i'm getting married next week

-yeah, that's why i'm comin' over.

-unh-unh. i don't do nothing' without my man

i been a good girl for six months.

i'm a good girl. i'm a good girl.

she hasn't taken her eyes off her phone

during this entire conversation, her

semi-mohawk afro haircut with a blonde crest,

is bent over her phone. buds sprouting from her ears,

her metallic green-nailed thumbs tapping

and caressing the screen.

then a woman with a little boy in a stroller

wheels by and the huslter barks,

-stop!  get him out of that thing.

the boy begins to cry, he doesn't want to get out .

he's afraid of daddy.

the young man bends down growls in the boys face.

-why you trying to scare my baby? his young mother says.

-cause it's fake, daddy bully says.

she walks on and he turns back to woman tapping on her phone.

-are those your engagement rings?

-yeah.

-both of them?

-yeah, they from the same place.

the bus pulls up and the people shuffle up to the doors.

the lumbering pale video game enthusiasts,

the sikh, the two middle-aged latinas engaged in animated conversation.

the skinny chinese boys laughing at a private joke.

the bottle blonde lady with the frightened eyes.

daddy bully goes to the back of the bus

mother and boy in stroller stay up front

afro mohawk woman grabs one of the three single seats,

prized by those who are picky about their seatmates.

like the guy who looks like he's been sleeping rough

for twenty years with the bloodshot eyes and straggly

whiteman dreadlocks halfway to his waist.

he stares out the window like he's seeing nothing.

another woman with a stroller gets on the bus

one of those ghostly bleached out utah mormon-looking types

except she's got faded tattooed words on her neck.

the baby is quite young, no more than a year old,

snoozing in that bottomless baby slumber.