Poetry: "The Stops"

By Frannie Lindsay

I have to catch the 71 and the 55
city buses, both of them hourly,
to get to my father


there is no other way, though
I’ve lived in this city twenty years
and have many friends


so I bring a book
and something that no one
will notice me eating


I try to sit in one of the single seats
that doesn’t have any graffiti
or damp spots, maybe


I get to read a page or two
or at least stay out of the way
of the boy whose pants are short,


who rides this route
every day, and shouts at himself
the names of all the stops