photoart: ralph murre
Early
Work
by
Max Garland
My
father’s milk truck bounces
the
county roads, as much a part
of
the jangle of future as dawn.
His
shirt is white as God to me,
I
get to ride along sometimes.
the
smell of the cooler
is
the rubbery cold where
nothing
spoils, where rows
of
bottles ride like music
before
the choir wakes up,
or
the pigeons tear loose
from
silos and steeples.
The
cords of muscle in his arms,
the
pulsing star of cigarette,
the
jump on the walking world we get
as
we navigate the deep blue
stutter
of washboard roads,
help
lift the day onto the calendar.
First
light arrives, slow as a wage
I
don’t yet know the meaning of, though
I
feel the glow of usefulness
as
I lug the empties back to the truck
where
the sun has started
to
brighten the fenders and latches,
the
chrome of the hubcaps like coins
for
the road where dark is spent
and
wealth is milk at every door.
~
first published in Prairie Schooner
