The Bus, by Catherine Ruffing Drotleff

The Bus, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico). 1929.

The Bus

My bare feet graze the trolley’s metal floor.
The apricot-flamed scarf
winds its way from head to toe, a cotton shield,
and tucks lightly around you: my silent, hidden
son.  You are quiet and eager.
My eyes dart, diligent, from your eyes
to chin to forehead, tracing the well-worn
circuit of you. My gaze is only yours,
and you, my copper-gauzed world.

We sit in a row on the pressed wood bench: dolls
on a playroom shelf, our tourists queued up
outside the museum.  Lost in thoughts and dreams.
The split seconds
between the now and the next
are frozen in frame--
         
your tongue darts back and forth--
your coo a small mewing--

we are unsuspecting
passengers for one moment more,
and then the seconds
will collapse into each other,
and we will follow.

Catherine Ruffing Drotleff

A non-profit fundraiser by day, and a poet by night, Catherine Ruffing Drotleff writes to place herself in the world and to observe that place over time and space.  A Midwesterner by birthright and a Chicagoan by choice, Catherine's work has appeared in Rattle and Blue Hour Magazine.