“Bus People at the Fordham Road Station” by Amy Soricelli

There are jury duty people on the bus from the
courthouse, you can see their mustard fingers from
the hotdog truck on the corner.
They are carrying right and wrong in the spaces
between the seats and judging with their eyes open.
Some of them have wax paper between their fingers
that they study with every bite.
The Bronx air creeps through the windows passing
nameless streets: no one keeps their lips
open long enough to sound them out.

I used to take that bus in the days of cold sandwich
lunches eaten before noon, and the steady drum
of fear I played inside my head.
No one on that bus knows which seat was mine but I
left my breath on the glass.
The coded letters fell off my notebook like
wild hearts on fire.
I would rock my feet under myself and pray for
salvation from geometry.
No one held my hand, only keys, and tongues, and
torn sweaters unraveling on my back.

The old couple in the longest seats is trading
words into their ears and covering their arms with wool.
They are cold in ways we can’t discover.
They look at others one by one; their separate
eyes judging from sneakers to hats.
They think they know you from the small bags you
carry or the way you keep your hands in your laps.
They could be jury duty people too with their pointing
fingers and glazed-over eyes.

Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications/ anthologies including, The Westchester Review, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Rumblefish Quarterly, The Bronx Magazine, Glimpse Poetry, *That Plane is not a Star (to be released 4/2024/Dancing Girl Press, *Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021, Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. *Pushcart Nomination: 2021, Nominated twice; “Best of the Net” 2020, 2013, Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer’s Fellowship/2019

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