Woman takes a bus in India

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  Here's a poem I wrote about taking the bus in India, which got left out of the collection 'Sips...,' unfortunately.
  
  TOO CLOSE
  
  I
  My parents, landed with luggage
  In the lurching bus, handed me
  Over the jammed bodies
  To the seated conductor.
  The blue-uniformed, paan-chewing
  Dispenser of tickets, keeper
  Of a bag full of jingling change,
  Held my three-year-old body
  Locked between his knees
  As he ripped off a ticket
  To Paris or Moore Market,
  And blew a whistle in my ear.
  
  II
  I leave a laugh at the doorstep
  And plunge my body sixteen
  Between the backside of a fat woman
  And the violence of a thousand rearing men
  Who plough into a city bus, every hour
  On the hour, to sow their bulletin.
  
  The numb, dumb anger
  Of a thousand sournesses
  Raise head and spear this body.
  They grind and grind like teeth
  In a fever of sleep,
  And the hot release of stoppered sex
  Scalds me again and again,
  As the bus jerks to its destination.