Summer 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 3

woke up that morning in high school

                 to a man’s deep scream,

sky purple & pink

                 like swirled Trix yogurts.

somewhere, a boy not much older than me

                 called out to God between sobs.

out my window, old women in bathrobes

                 ghosted the street.

a garbage man was stuck under

                 the boy’s front tire—

he made sounds i didn’t know

                 grown men could make.

my mother brought the boy & his friends

                 ritz crackers & coke cans.

it helps me when I’m sick, she said,

                 but no one took the food;

we all stood around

                 like street signs, waiting.

a half hour later—an eternity

                 for the man—a helicopter landed

on the neighbor’s front lawn

                 & he was taken up in the air

like elijah. mom says he is paralyzed

                 but still alive, no longer

a garbage man. what does it mean

                 to him, to no longer be

a garbage man? was he able to find

                 more work, or did the paralysis

take that from him, too? i want

                 to think him well but know

in this world we are all racehorses

                 until we can no longer race.

& then. what does a racehorse

                 become? how does it (how do i)

persuade those watching

                 we are worthy

of more than becoming glue?