The Bus Riders, by Ruth Bavetta

The Bus Riders, by George Segal (USA) 1964. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966. Click image for site.

​The Bus Riders
 
Four white plaster people, three seated, 
one standing. One reading, three
staring with blank white eyes. 
 
Lurch of the bus, the smell, the exhaust, 
the squeal of the brakes
as the bus lumbers to another stop.
 
The seats around these figures, 
the seats that are not there, 
fill with people who are not there. 
 
The bus, accelerating, slowing,
accelerating. screeching,
 
 exhausting, groaning, grinding.
slowing, stopping
 
These mute figures 
and their invisible neighbours 
can get off or 
 
they can stay on
 
jostling, bumping, swaying,
staring
 
all the way to the end.
 
Ruth Bavetta

Ruth Bavetta writes at a messy desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, American Journal of Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, fundamentalism and sauerkraut.