The Alarmist

The best way
to kill
something
that's ever meant
anything
to you:

Repeat it
until it
means nothing.


Currently reading:
"Fence:  Spring-Summer 2018".

Cargo Woes

There's a tractor-trailer
canted at sixty degrees
over a ditch
at the otherwise quiet
highway rest stop
I'm passing.
An oversize tow truck
is rigged to the front bumper.
Its companion is smaller
with a crane hooked
to the side of the vehicle in distress.

Despite the newsworthy spectacle
only one man is watching
this maneuver at 6:33 AM
clearly not a fellow driver.

Two dozen rigs are parked in the lot
in varying states of rest
but none of their operators
are gawking at the scene.
They've seen it before
or it's happened to them
or they grant their brother
the respect of communal privacy
or they're mingling with lot lizards
or they're too damn tired
from being on the road
to care.

I reach my destination
three minutes before
the projected time
of my GPS
and finish my last swig
of coffee.


Currently reading:
"Rattle:  Spring 2020".

Contenders

I'm wrapped up today
like a woebegone pugilist
with a splint on my wrist
from a doc-in-the-box
to help heal a sprain
or a strain or neither
that isn't carpal tunnel.

There's a ripped envelope
to my right with its contents
spewed across the kitchen table:
A xeroxed sheet of science notes
"for the kids"
from chapters 13 and 14
with outdated info on water purification
printed in purple ink;
A wheatback penny from 1939;
A Baptist tract with scripture
intended to save my soul;
And an invoice with stamps
labeled diagrams
and capitalized ballpoint pen
that details the free labor
of cleaning and oiling
the enclosed rifle spring
from before the Civil War.
At the bottom of the page
he's squeezed a website address
and scrawled his humble boast
of providing mail order since 1965.

I sniff the dark and greasy palm
of my hardened clinic bandage
and remember it's still me.

In eight minutes I'll cover
my forearm with a garbage bag
and take an overdue shower
but if I could do anything right now
sans words or repercussions
I'd hug a stranger from Pennsylvania
who's somehow made it to eighty.


Currently reading:
"Poetry:  July/August 2019".