TRASH-MAN
My father and I go to the city dump.
Amid the mountains of smell and scurrying rodents,
we're looking for the trash of others that we can take home and treasure.
This is all supposed to be one-way traffic
but my father knows a guy who knows a guy
who's blind in one eye when our truck rumbles by the exit-gate.
Sure, the flies and an occasional mouse come along for the ride.
And you never know where the point of a rusty nail could be lurking.
But that's a small risk compared to a lawn-mower that just needs a little work.
Or a mattress that may yet spring back to life on a bunk bed.
My father's brains are in his hands.
If anyone can find a use for a dented hubcap, he can.
Whatever he can salvage from the garbage
is all that I can expect from life.
The fathers of the other kids have jobs.
I've learned not to be jealous of their possessions.
Besides, in their world, a bright new toy's future
is dull and old and broken into pieces.
Only my old man can start with the end of things
and work his way to the beginning.
I have soldiers with their heads glued back on shoulders.
Books with no covers but every word intact.
Half a globe - the northern hemisphere.
My father says I'm not missing much.
And there's this rocking horse, stuffed anew,
that has more miles in it I'm sure
than I could even have childhood.
Yes, while other fathers and kids head for the store,
my father and I go to the city dump.
They come out clean. We're never less than greasy.
They pay with credit cards.
Our cost is the occasional scratch we hope will not turn septic.
When I'm the father, it will be different.
I’ll accumulate new stuff,
toss what I no longer need.
It’ll pile up in a heap in the dump somewhere,
for others to lead these lives we’ve led.
THE EX AT THE COFFEEHOUSE
She sits at the far table,
staring at her cell phone.
Like a human text message,
I pop up on the chair opposite.
She gives me a look
of “What are you doing here?”
though her response comes out as
“Oh hi.”
Just being polite,
I wasn’t expecting such awkwardness.
But, when a couple
have seen each other naked,
sometimes showing up fully clothed,
long after the passion and the love,
can feel like being stripped to the bone.
A conversation ensues
that’s full of recent history.
It’s called catching up.
But there’s no joining up
in our tales of current relationships.
She’s broken up with someone
for the second time since we were an item.
I’m taking a break from women.
In fact, I’m taking a break from people,
in the role that I was born to play…hermit.
After an elongated bout of silence,
I bid farewell and leave.
I never do purchase the latté
which was my original intention
in going there.
She returns to the events of her cell phone.
I catch a glimpse of her finger erasing something.
Me, most likely.
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