Miz Rosa Rides the Bus
By Angela Jackson
That day in December I sat down
by Miss Muffet of Montgomery.
I was myriad-weary. Feets swole *endlessly/ without bound
from sewing seams on a filthy fabric;
tired-sore a pedalin’ the rusty Singer;
dingy cotton thread jammed in the eye.
All lifelong I’d slide through century-reams living in the shadow of history
loathsome with tears. Dreaming my own of slavery
silk-self.
It was not like they all say. Miss Liberty Muffet
she didn’t
jump at the sight of me.
Not exactly.
They hauled me *usually used in relation to heavy items/objectification
away—a thousand kicking legs pinned down.
The rest of me I tell you—a cloud.
Beautiful trouble on the dead December
horizon. Come to sit in judgment.
How many miles as the Jim Crow flies? *laws that legalised racial segregation
Over oceans and some. I rumbled.
They couldn’t hold me down. Long.
No.
My feets were tired. My eyes were
sore. My heart was raw from hemming
dirty edges of Miss L. Muffet’s garment.
I rode again.
A thousand bloody miles after the Crow flies =violence and suffering alludes
that day in December long remembered when I sat down to the violent history
beside Miss Muffet of Montgomery. of slavery
By Angela Jackson
That day in December I sat down
by Miss Muffet of Montgomery.
I was myriad-weary. Feets swole *endlessly/ without bound
from sewing seams on a filthy fabric;
tired-sore a pedalin’ the rusty Singer;
dingy cotton thread jammed in the eye.
All lifelong I’d slide through century-reams living in the shadow of history
loathsome with tears. Dreaming my own of slavery
silk-self.
It was not like they all say. Miss Liberty Muffet
she didn’t
jump at the sight of me.
Not exactly.
They hauled me *usually used in relation to heavy items/objectification
away—a thousand kicking legs pinned down.
The rest of me I tell you—a cloud.
Beautiful trouble on the dead December
horizon. Come to sit in judgment.
How many miles as the Jim Crow flies? *laws that legalised racial segregation
Over oceans and some. I rumbled.
They couldn’t hold me down. Long.
No.
My feets were tired. My eyes were
sore. My heart was raw from hemming
dirty edges of Miss L. Muffet’s garment.
I rode again.
A thousand bloody miles after the Crow flies =violence and suffering alludes
that day in December long remembered when I sat down to the violent history
beside Miss Muffet of Montgomery. of slavery
