Bus Stop

By Donald Justice

Lights are burning

In quiet rooms

Where lives go on

Resembling ours.

The quiet lives

That follow us—

These lives we lead

But do not own—

Stand in the rain

So quietly

When we are gone,

So quietly . . .

And the last bus

Comes letting dark

Umbrellas out—

Black flowers, black flowers.

And lives go on.

And lives go on

Like sudden lights

At street corners

Or like the lights

In quiet rooms

Left on for hours,

Burning, burning.