Bus Driver

All day long on the South Rim
she drives the bus,
announces the Grand Canyon lookouts,
opens and shuts the doors,
tries not to hate the views she can't see
or the ones who can.
"You can sit on the bus, I guess," she says,
as we clamber up, tired from hiking,
"But this bus leaves at 6:52."
Twenty minutes to ponder her gray curls
tumbling romantically down her back,
to note the make-up baked tight
over her hard, underslung jaw,
to listen to her country grammar
like the pick of a steel guitar
under the treble of her troubles.
"People don't know what it's like,
all the long day, standin' in line
to pee, to eat. Nobody lets me by."
I'm too tired to care.
My heartbeat whumps in the thin air
as I listen to the voice
of a dozen relatives.

A truckdriver nearby
who can rip out his life story
quick as a rattler catching a shrew
tunes up his contrabass. He and the driver
sing an old C & W song without music:
car crashes, bad roads, startled critters
who can wreck a semi just by looking,
the wayward organs of the body
like that shifty fool, the bladder,
so easily dislodged by bad brakes.
I'd laugh if it weren't sad,
I'd cry if it weren't funny,
this angry woman driving the rim
one drag-ass day after another.
If I asked her if she came from Kentucky
she might bust my chops
and there we'd be,
swaying back and forth over the line,
the bus filling up with sunset
sliding down into its nightly mystery,
cold at the bottom of the canyon.