But of course the damned old
pickup won’t start again,
and they miss the marching bands
in their bright uniforms,
the Shriners tiny in their go-karts,
the waving Santa and the hailstorm
of Dum-Dums and Laffy Taffys.
So next morning he calls
them both in sick,
no loading the fish trucks today,
none of that endless tracing
of loopy letters on wide-ruled paper.
She helps him swap out
the fuel pump
for one from the junkyard
delivered by goateed uncle
on motorbike,
and all afternoon they sit uptown,
a pair of grease-covered gearheads
in the white sunshine,
watching the long slow procession
of the Everyday Parade.
The mother who waits
until her daughter leaves
the restaurant
to light a secret cigarette,
the men through the window
of the bridal shop
telling with animated hands
what must be jokes or whoppers.
Three stray dogs locked
in tight formation,
the mangiest and most
loyal-looking mutts ever
to slink along a stretch of city street.
A beerkeg hauled
by big enthusiastic boys
in shorts and grimy ballcaps
from truckbed to duplex door.
And finally, not St. Nicholas
but a gangly old splotch-faced drunk
tripstepping up 4th Street
and crooning Sinatra from under
his Victorian mustache,
singing just the way a catfish might,
if he believed no one
could possibly hear his notes
swimming or sinking flat
beneath the spread and weight
of all that muddy water.
Photo Source: Alphabet
© 2011 Justin Hamm
