Reaction:
My reaction to this poem was confusion. I thought, how could a person on fire, a person drowning, a person freezing to death, and a person mauled by dogs all relate to each other and how could they all get on a bus. So I went back and read the poem again.
Meaning:
When I looked back into the poem and read it over again I came to the conclusion that all these people were involved too deeply in their own problems. In each stanza there was something getting in the way of each person helping another person.
I figured that the person drowning was metaphorically drowning in self pity, or stress. She wasn't helped because no one wants someone else's problems to become their own. The person on fire was so aggravated that he couldn't even think of helping anyone else. The two women who were near the man did not want to get too close for fear of being burned and no one wants to talk to an angry person to make them more angry. Lastly, the person who was freezing to death doesn't want to help anyone because they are too cold to move or do anything other than slowly shrivel away. No one helped her because she was metaphorically cold (heartless or bitter).
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