A Drive-Thru in New Jersey, 1999
 
 
 
He appeared beyond that age
when the government starts giving back
what it had spent years collecting.
But he worked, surrounded by teenagers,
he worked.
I’d pull up and he’d stand
in the window, asking in accent
if anything else was needed.
Nothing ever was,
but I had questions that time and place
would not allow.
I wondered about the journey.
And when he’d hand me the bag,
I’d always glance past,
to his forearm
tattooed in blurry blue numbers,
logging,
listing,
recording
that time and place
had once allowed.
 
 
originally published in Poetry Salzburg Review

Forums: 

Reviews

No reviews yet.