“Kharon: Take the oar and push her to. Now pay your fare and go.”
~ Aristophanes, “Frogs”
Like all the other girls at the ticket counter,
this one’s young, smartly dressed in red and yellow.
Her jaunty cap, aslant, dips slightly below
the brow. You wonder if she’d be better
off walking an aircraft’s narrow aisles,
pushing carts of water, soda, coffee, tea,
foil-wrapped peanuts, crackers, cheese—
than listing left and right as the express
bus lumbers down the mountain road. It’s raining hard
and the cracked window gaskets leak, so she stoops
every few rows to apply a layer of old newspapers
under our feet. She comes back shortly, still
smiling: old-fashioned one hole ticket punch
in hand, settling us in for the six hour ride.
In response to Via Negativa: Refugee's prayer.