Passing a Golden Arrow Bus on a Cold and Lonely Night

*[this poem is about a domestic worker from South Africa crossing back home into Zimbabwe on a cheap bus used by poorer citizens]*

She clasps her hands and sleeps
Head nodding on her chest
Slow and gentle snores
As she takes this moments rest

Because she’s so awfully tired
So beaten down and drained
But nobody really cares
About her life and about her pain

And she no longer has a dream
No goals for which to strive
Because she’s spent too long just surviving
In this heartless human hive

She’s sick right now with flu
And has been for days
But there is no doctor where she lives
And if there was, she couldn’t pay

And she hasn’t seen her children
For six long and brutal months
As she rears someone else’s
Cooks them dinner and makes them lunch

Her life has been so listless
So disappointing and incomplete
As she washes clothes and dishes
Whilst wishing she could read

And her hands are calloused raw
From scrubbing rich men’s floors
Countless hours on her knees
Doing wealthy people’s chores

And she’s been trying to do her best
With the little that she earns
But it really isn’t much
And there’s still so much for which she yearns

In fact, she has barely anything to show
For her last few years of toil
As she sends everything she makes
Back home because she’s loyal

And now the little that she’s saved
Is being used up with every mile
As the slow and lonely bus
Grinds along in single file

Carrying her home to see her family
For the first time since she left
Crossing callous white man’s borders
That have left her so empty and bereft

And at the moment our paths cross
On this barren stretch of road
She suddenly awakes
And for a second time is slowed

As our eyes briefly meet
Then force our gaze to hold
And in that trembling clarity
I can see her life unfold

I can feel the pain she carries
Even though our lives are so far apart
Because in that instant I just know
That she bears a heavy heart

For I can see the deep sorrow
That she holds within her soul
From a hard and servile life
Over which she has never had control

And for a moment I realize
Just how atrociously unfair
This apathetic world can be
On those who have no share

Because now my eyes have been forced open
And forever etched into my mind
Is a completely different life
To which I have always been so blind

And then the bus screams past
And with it, so does she
Leaving a burning silhouette
That will forever haunt me.