day NINE HUNDRED and EIGHTY

fear and loathing in springville, ny

somewhere out there

was a book of poetry

with my name on it

but an editor who wouldn’t return my calls

so i made art out of carrying

windows and doors down wet planks

in an early april mixture of snow and rain

when the truck died in springville

i wanted to call it a sonnet

hungry and tired we were miles away from anything

but some asshole’s half-built mansion

but the radio worked

so joey and i sat huddled in the cab

listening to hate-filled pundits

and sipping the dregs of cold coffee

waiting for someone from the company

to come and pick us up

my body was writing haikus

to sore backs and banged up knees

to a rust belt city where a guy

couldn’t get a decent job to save his life

and all joey wanted to talk about were guns

and school shootings

how much he hated black people

even though they didn’t

have anything to do with either of those things

and how when his dad died

he’d probably sell the company

to the competitor

instead of carrying it on

maybe get himself a house down south

near half-naked women on a beach

i thought about my editor

and my book of poetry

how no one buys poetry

but almost everyone owns a gun

i thought about the turkey sandwich

that i didn’t buy at the wegman’s

on our way to the job that morning

a little insurance for my stomach

that i wasn’t willing to make

how joey’s dad ate two slices of pepperoni pizza

every day for lunch

and paid me next to minimum wage

to break my ass

and act as a sounding board

for his idiot son

so when joey turned the ignition again

just for shits and giggles

and the car suddenly turned over

and we pulled out of the work site slop

back on to the highway

i thought about how

when we got back

i was going to secretly quit the job

drive down to the pizza restaurant

and get me two slices of pepperoni

eat them in the car

with a nice cold beer

and some coltrane playing on the stereo

pretend that i was a millionaire

best-selling author for an hour

then crawl the two miles back to the warehouse

to wait on the next job

or the next immortal poem

to come.

--John Grochalski