Page 19 - Contrast1977Aprilv20n2

who raced and raced all in one place.
-- Now take a panther, black and female, and give

it the body of a human, black and female, and you have
what stepped into the bus just then. Some glass broke
in my mind. She was wearing platfonn grips which lifted up
and came down with real care, precise as pistons, lest,
perchance, an ankle break. But I suspect, platforms aside,
that it was in her feline nature t.o wa lk so I soft and
careful. Those were stylish legs, too, left bare by a
short red skirt, t.ha t. advanced tall dowr; the murky aisle
on their grips. She wore the short orange leather jacket,
pinched at the waist, so sharp in style then.

You rai.qh t say, all eyes were u.pon her, all eyes in-
haling as the driver smoked/fast and furious, before she
passed into the s uIk i nc .re ce sses of t.his Snyde I s Bus. Ko,
the heads of t.he insti t.ut.i on i tes had set in tilis long wa.i t,
set like pieces of fruit in a grape jello, and the dull
eyes, rno st of t.nem , we re s eeraing to wa t ch the thin s now
that had started falling from the fog -- t.he y faced away.
T1\'O head s I or t.h.re e I g!:ou.:1d sLov l.y on their necks, re-
sponding s Lot.h=Li ke to t}Je.padding of the Black Girl's
grips. The Ubiquitous c ha t t.e.rf zorn the back, if it paused,
r e sumed in t.he same rnornerrt ,

I am convinced I was alone in this perception!
From out her crested collars rose a neck inordinately
long, gathering speed and light unto the head. But what
is this truncated English word, "head," to suit her grace?
Those frozen ITh2dicineballs on their stalks, lined up and
down the bus, poor things, they were "heads." No, the
long smooth neck reached its cables into an ethereus where
were molded the features of her beauty: petal lips, tender
nose ("nose"!), panther cheeks, delft eyes; crowned by a
forehead of intelligence and an ornate jungle of pitch hair
hair to go wande r i nq in if you are monkey enough. That
coffee scalp down Lhere, that is the forest floor, and yes,
even as no human is perfect, there are small animals cross-
ing over it -- but I have no proof of this, no specimens
in labeled bottles to produce. It is only out of my ..