Wood
The ghosts are wandering,
Searching for the concrete floored
Wooden hulls of the factory ships
Tailing ripsaws or driving dowel pins,
Operating a Carolina machine
Setting a limited range of patterns
For legs and arms and seats
Upholstering, sewing,
Carrying that shit into trucks
Three hacks high in summer heat.
The ghosts are looking for missing fingers
For the dope truck pulled into the parking lot
Set your watch by it at 9 AM
For bosses who shit themselves
Over a nickel raise
Then sent a minute-man
To speed up the line.
The ghosts pass through abandoned mills
Like wind over fallow fields
Hunting for all that beautiful furniture
They made but could never afford.
____________
Freddie
He wanted to be a trucker
And he spent most of the time
In his classes emulating
An accelerating tractor truck
With an endless number of gears.
His voice was a cross between
A hillbilly growl and blue tic howl.
When he downshifted
His school desk shook,
The Beta Club girl with cat eye glasses
Who would one day marry him,
Giving him her exasperation face.
By third period he’d had a workout
Having driven through a selected reading
Of Macbeth and a sociological survey
To determine the state of one’s
Familial dynamics,
So he lay his head on his open
World History book
Cheek to cheek with
A Roman emperor
And dreamed a Peterbilt technicolor dream
Honking his horn at every stocky country boy
Who raised his hand in that universal sign,
And the miles and days rolled by
Over and under him
Till he turned 16.
It was so Quiet in the Room
All you could hear was
Two poets
Discussing
Their Pushcart nominations.