bus driver brakes
passengers hasty off
hungry fish dodging fish hooks,
abandoning hungry children clinging to pregnant mothers,
grey bearded Romanian men in black hats,
overwellfed bubbies heading home to cook chicken soup and knaidlach,
startup balding 30s something techs,
Ethiopian Vogue models nodding plugged into techno music earbuds,
texting ponytailed teenaged soldiers chewing gum carrying semi-automatics,
Ukrainian journalists dressed as Real Madrid soccer players,
black curly-haired Tunisian abstract painters
and elementary school teachers and pinball wizards
all along for the ride
meanwhile, confused at my stop, I forget my phone
that clamors for a way back home after I depart,
to be free of this coach
while forsaken by its home number,
and its keeper
20, 30 stops later,
this latest and fully-loaded device rings
shrieking like a spoiled child,
rejected like a junk call,
dismissed by a mute button,
passed over like the angel of death,
tourists and commuters ignoring
this sacrifice for the greater good,
this contribution to the recycling movement,
this offering to waste more precious time,
time better spent dancing the merengue or hora,
time better spent transplanting succulents,
time better spent reading a novel
as drivers brake,
their riders have rejected
dismissed the false dependency on digitally frenetic hyperconnected
wrong numbers and robocalls,
distained the false dependency on driving the wrong way
into round-about one-way street GPS driven typographical errors,
deciding instead to bypass that convenience
to surrender to whomever happens to text or call
losing a phone can be reconciled?
yes: waiting at the next stop holding her tiny infant,
bus rider momma covets Lost and Found phone money for a package of Pampers,
maybe a small package of Nestlé’s baby formula