TWO POEMS

To the Chicken Truck

“So what do you do?”For the years I drove you,I liked that question; I was 23;the lives of the poets I likedcontained things like automotiveplants, box factories, donuts,pet crematoria, national forestoutposts. Kenneth Koch, alumnusof Walnut Hills High Schoolin Cincinnati, OH—fought in WWII.You were not quite WWIIas far as an experiencebut I put you inlike a tooth under a pillowyou and the city in which I drove youpositive you’d be replacedbefore too long with books.An Isuzu LCF (Low Cab Forward)with a 20-foot boxand a reefer, the first timeI saw you it was on Barrow St.at Washington you were whiteas a whiteboard you were glossyand inviting and because you slepton the streets of Manhattantwo blocks from the Hudsonhooligans welcomed youto the big city (it was 2003)with spray-painted peniseslike swan-necks twisted together.But it was ok. You were coveredin a purple vinyl vehicle wrapthe next week. On you there wasnow a ruffly blue exotic hen,other fowl, and the company logo,tastefully smallish,featuring an egg.You were a mobile billboard anda working catering truck.That’d been the plan for you all along.We dubbed you “The Chicken Truck.”By a 20th century miracletotally normalized I pressedmy foot to one smallpiece of you, and all of you roared,all of you went! All the foodall the mixers and booze, all that wentinto guests’ bodies each partylunged and bounced and slid and shook.Your windshield was New York Cityin every shifting view;in the beginning getting anywherein you took all the confidenceI could fake. After three yearsbacking you into docksparallel parking you on side streetssteering you into truck elevatorsit was real enough that I could love you.And I did love you, loved yourturning radius your exact widthas if my nerves flowed through you.Chicken Truck, you were my whip!And I admit, some others’ too.And what we all loved, we whotruly knew you? You were tough.God were you. Never a garageabove you not one day in your life.Starting, stopping, bouncing,turning, revving, braking, wake up,do it again, any day, time, weather.When a man leapt in the nightfrom the roof of the Archive Buildingand landed on you, he left a mansizeddent. The police left a note.Kory “Pimp Juice” Moore, first in,cleaned the blood. We packedyou full and off I drovebecause that’s New York.Funny, I always thought I’d beout of catering before you;I was right. I thought you’d bedone in a decade or less.I was in it 15 years.Kory is dead. Even Falk is dead.Last I heard, you’re still on the road.