THE BROOKLYN BUS DRIVER
by Daniela Gioseffi

Takes my ticket with the stub of a missing thumb
held against his right hand-just enough of a crease
to rest the small card in where his thumb should press his hand.
His missing finger shows like a wound in his eyes
--but he goes on smiling and taking tickets and driving
for a living. Why should he take tickets with his good left hand
when the entrance to the bus is on his right?
And I think of my nephew with his hand caught in an antique car
fan, four fingers nearly severed and sewn on again,
and of Uncle Joe who survived the battle of The Bulge
in World War II only to come home to low-paying factory work
which smashed his fingers off when an aluminum pie plate
he was molding with a machine stamped down on them.
Seeing them lying bloody before his eyes, his face
must have been shocked paler than the day he escaped
alive from the worst battle of the war,
but he went on working all the rest of his life to raise his family.
I think of the blind man in my building who smiles cheerfully
as he walks with his white cane tapping on his way
to tune pianos for his livelihood.
I remember the tale of a magician told by a hunch backed storyteller,
with elated wit, about a trickster who performed slight
of hand wonders with a missing index on his right hand never
noticed by his audience too engrossed in his magicality
to notice his deformity.
I remember, too my father who
with lame and shortened leg
learned to ride a pogo stick, bicycle and dance
the tango at Arthur Murry's studio. This poem is dedicated
to the "differently-abled" who are not disabled, but able
in their own way
unwilling to be labeled
as less
than the best endurance of their test