Passenger Confessions - Monday

The driver wears his weekend, bloated soured face.
A woman holds the exact change, leaning back to escape his stinking breath.
Rain makes every passenger smell. A life lived in a damp wardrobe, mildewed.
A child wails on its mother’s knee, relentless.
Tired faces turn, irritation evident.

A crumpled old man smiles, memory creases his puckered mouth,
to kiss a woman he once knew, he folds his hands into his lap.
The woman next to him mutters from lips, web thin.
She knows him, knows his thoughts, hates his memories.
She wants him punished, humiliated, like she was,
years ago, the vicar, the shame.
He fidgets.

A youth turns his earphones up to drown out the crying child,
nods at the screeching brat with a sneer.
Everyone hears his tinny tunes.
Brakes squeal. The bus hisses to a halt. Passengers jolt forward,
a groan, a scream, the child still howling.

Rain hits the windows, oncoming traffic shimmers,
drowned figures stutter across the road, avoiding puddles.
The congregation moves like cattle
crossing the flood, torrential.

This enclosure has filthy windows, stretched necks
trying to see where they get off.
The driver ignores each departing passenger.
His shift will finish, eventually. And his passengers?
The end of the line, until tomorrow.