Globalization Genome by Nilofar Shidmehr

I am at the back of the bus;

beside me, an Indian woman,

looks out the window, The Vancouver Sun

on the lap of her sari announces:

Bus crash in Iraq: Six pilgrims killed.

Across the aisle, a Latino girl

does not seem to care about the news;

she is listening to Salsa

on her iPhone.

Neither do others care,

the white man beside the girl,

studying a textbook on genetics,

an aboriginal man, standing over him,

his forehead pressed against the metal bar.

A few minutes later, the headline

still reads the same, when suddenly,

the Chinese driver slams on the brakes,

jerking me back into the present.

Startled, I look around:

we are still alive, although frozen,

for a moment, before the bus

moves forward, and we start again

with our own busy-ness:

one listening to music

one staring out the window

one gazing down

at one studying genetics,

the red spiral of human

DNA

in his book,

exposed

to Vancouver sun.

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NILOFAR SHIDMEHR, PhD, MFA, is a bilingual writer, poet, and educator. She is the author of two collections of short fiction and five books of poetry in English and Persian.