on the road to nowheresville / a sleep-deprived late night ride

the bus is despicable,

four late nighters half asleep nodding

downward into cylinders of scarfed skin and bone.

from a back seat at the window

I daydream of Rosa Parks, resolute and valiant.

but this is the bus to nowheresville, and

I'm not Rosa Parks.

I'm cotton-eyed Joe who earlier slurped java

at the counter of a desolate neighborhood diner

where in better moods would've been an occasion

to be memorialized. but here,––

here, I'm one of four late night vagabonds

riding the bus, nodding half asleep,

purposely leaning left around the right-lane bend

purposely leaning right at the left-lane exit on the road

to no place in particular.