I was sure I was the bully on the school bus.
And I doubt my third grade victim
even remembers but
I’ll never forgive myself for that first time
I used my words to make someone cry.
To be fair, I was defending a cousin.
Even though I don’t remember why,
even though he was the step kind of cousin
and I didn’t think much of him
and he might well have deserved it.
‘Cause to this day that boy ain’t learned
when to shut his mouth and ride along.
I was too soft for the school bus.
Lakeside wasn’t too far
from our gray block house
and the day I stumbled down the steep
and sticky steps while hydraulics hissed
and I confessed my meanness
and tears streamed down my face,
Mommy had had enough.
There was spit in my dishwater hair.
She drove me to school the next day.
And the next and the next.
Sometimes in the big, blue Ford farm truck
with no power steering.
I’d laugh and feel my tiny chest
get tight when she’d holler for help
and I’d stand up
and set my feet wide in the floor board
and grab hold of the wheel with both hands
and lean into the curves with her.