Miz Rosa Rides the Bus

Miz Rosa Rides the Bus

BY ANGELA JACKSON

That day in December I sat down

by Miss Muffet of Montgomery.

I was myriad-weary. Feets swole

from sewing seams on a filthy fabric;

tired-sore a pedalin' the rusty Singer;

 

dingy cotton thread jammed in the eye.

All lifelong I'd slide through century-reams

loathsome with tears. Dreaming my own

silk-self.

 

It was not like they all say. Miss Liberty Muffet

she didn't

jump at the sight of me.

Not exactly.

They hauled me

away—a thousand kicking legs pinned down.

 

The rest of me I tell you—a cloud.

Beautiful trouble on the dead December

horizon. Come to sit in judgment.

 

How many miles as the Jim Crow flies?

Over oceans and some. I rumbled.

They couldn't hold me down. Long.

No.

 

My feets were tired. My eyes were

sore. My heart was raw from hemming

dirty edges of Miss L. Muffet's garment.

I rode again.

 

A thousand bloody miles after the Crow flies

that day in December long remembered when I sat down

beside Miss Muffet of Montgomery.

I said—like the joke say—What's in the bowl, Thief?

I said—That's your curse.

I said—This my way.

She slipped her frock, disembarked,

settled in the suburbs, deaf, mute, lewd, and blind.

The bowl she left behind. The empty bowl mine.

The spoiled dress.

 

Jim Crow dies and ravens come with crumbs.

They say—Eat and be satisfied.

I fast and pray and ride.