Cover

Title

On the Bus with Rosa Parks

Poems

Rita Dove

W. W. Norton & Company
New York • London

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for

Aviva

for

Fred

Epigraph

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY FINALIST

“[Rita Dove’s] laser glance exposes and cauterizes its subjects in new and disturbing ways.”

—Helen Vendler, The New Yorker

“Dove’s poems read like short fums with the sound turned down. Centre-screen are vivid, often luscious details, while a quiet ironic voice-over points to the menace clouded by innocence or the sadness cramped by social niceties. She is an outstanding poet of the delicate nuances present in social complexity, of the lyric reflection embedded in the epic journey:”

—Sarah Maguire, Times Literary Supplement

“Dove has been extending the boundaries of her art, while also endeavoring to recover the past, be it that of European literary tradition or African-American history and culture.”

—Ben Howard, Poetry

Contents

Contents

Cameos

July, 1925—Night—Birth—Lake Erie Skyline, 1930—Depression Years—Homework—Graduation, Grammar School—Painting the Town—Easter Sunday, 1940— Nightwatch. The Son.

Freedom: Bird’s-Eye View

Singsong

I Cut My Finger Once on Purpose

Parlor

The First Book

Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967

Freedom: Bird’s-Eye View

Testimonial

Dawn Revisited

Black on a Saturday Night

My Mother Enters the Work Force

Black on a Saturday Night

The Musician Talks about “Process”

Sunday

The Camel Comes to Us from the Barbarians

The Venus of Willendorf

Incarnation in Phoenix

Revenant

Best Western Motor Lodge, AAA Approved

Revenant

On Veronica

There Came a Soul

The Peach Orchard

Against Repose

Against Self-Pity

Götterdämmerung

Ghost Walk

Lady Freedom Among Us

For Sophie, Who’ll Be in First Grade in the Year 2000

On the Bus with Rosa Parks

Sit Back, Relax

“The situation is intolerable”

Freedom Ride

Climbing In

Claudette Colvin Goes to Work

The Enactment

Rosa

QE2. Transatlantic Crossing. Third Day.

In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.

The Pond, Porch-View: Six P.M., Early Spring

Notes

Acknowledgments

Cameos

Cameos

Cameos

July, 1925

Lucille among the flamingos

is pregnant; is pained

because she cannot stoop to pluck

the plumpest green tomato

deep on the crusted vine.

Lucille considers

the flamingos, guarding in plastic cheer
the birdbath, parched

and therefore

deserted. In her womb

a dull—no, a husky ache.

If she picks it, Joe will come home

for breakfast tomorrow.

She will slice and dip it

in egg and cornmeal and fry

the tart and poison out.
Sobered by the aroma, he’ll show

for sure, and sit down

without a mumbling word.

Inconsiderate, then,

the vine that languishes

so!, and the bath sighing for water

while the diffident flamingos arrange

their torchsong tutus.

She alone is the blues. Pain drives her blank.

Lucille thinks: I can’t
even see my own feet.

Lucille lies down

between tomatoes

and the pole beans: heavenly shade.

From here everything looks

reptilian. The tomato plops

in her outstretched palm. Now