I could not tell I had jumped off that bus, <br />that bus in motion, with my child in my arms, <br />because I did not know it. I believed my own story: <br />I had fallen, or the bus had started up <br />when I had one foot in the air. <br /> <br />I would not remember the tightening of my jaw, <br />the irk that I’d missed my stop, the step out <br />into the air, the clear child <br />gazing about her in the air as I plunged <br />to one knee on the street, scraped it, twisted it, <br />the bus skidding to a stop, the driver <br />jumping out, my daughter laughing <br />Do it again. <br /> <br />I have never done it <br />again, I have been very careful. <br />I have kept an eye on that nice young mother <br />who lightly leapt <br />off the moving vehicle <br />onto the stopped street, her life <br />in her hands, her life’s life in her hands.<br /><br />Sharon Olds<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-could-not-tell/
