July 31, 2020
440: Miz Rosa Rides the Bus
July 31, 2020
440: Miz Rosa Rides the Bus
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 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 loathsome with tears. Dreaming my own 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 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? 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 that day in December long remembered when I sat down beside Miss Muffet of Montgomery. I said—like the joke say—What’s in the bowl, Thief? I said—That’s your curse. I said—This my way. She slipped her frock, disembarked, settled in the suburbs, deaf, mute, lewd, and blind. The bowl she left behind. The empty bowl mine. The spoiled dress. Jim Crow dies and ravens come with crumbs. They say—Eat and be satisfied. I fast and pray and ride.
"Miz Rosa Rides the Bus," by Angela Jackson, from AND ALL THESE ROADS BE LUMINOUS by Angela Jackson, copyright © 1998 TriQuarterly Books. Used by permission of Northwestern University Press.
