HÉDI KADDOURThe Bus Driver
What has gotten into the bus driver
Who has left his bus, who has sat down
On a curb on the Place de l’Opéra
Where he slips into the ease of being
Nothing more than his own tears? The passers-by
Who bend over such a shared and
Presentable sorrow would like him
To tell them that the wind used to know
How to come out of the woods towards a woman’s dress,
Or that one day his brother said to him
Even your shadow wants nothing to do with you.
His feet in a puddle, the bus driver
Can only repeat: This work is hard
And people aren’t kind.
—marilyn hacker
Variations
She already knows that he had said ‘‘The rest of them
shit marble’’ and that he sometimes played
in, shall we say, disorderly houses (it’s
in Amadeus), which produced Ah, vous dirais-je,
a taste with the notes’ sweetness, between marches
and flourishes, where time gives nothing away:
she plays, re mi do tou-our-ment, a mi
that’s a quarter-note in a big word,
to utter the right misstep, and silence
is not a figure walking away: it’s there to
bring everything together when it’s crossed
by fiery certainties, the other hand’s arpeggios. Later
the heart’s wheeling, drunkenness, shattered words,
or holding on to stars. Tonight Ah, vous dirais-je,
is only the start of the race, and already
the ironic reflection of herself, while utopia
stays discreetly behind the lamp in
mama’s hands, tonight, time is an octave.
—marilyn hacker