Pelican Tracks

Benjamin in the Salvage Yard

 Benjamin in the Salvage Yard As we turned transparent with sweat In the summer sun, he talked of Pussy and half-pints and knives, Those Saturday nights cut loose From tire and steel, the slow wrestling Of wrecks in my father’s junkyard— Benjamin, young enough to pass As my older brother, black enough No one would call us kin. On drives to the dump, he taught me Pedal and stick shift, making the clutch Pop in the rickety pickup, cursing My grind and jerk, more patient Than that state instructor who, Though he must have cooled his veins With antifreeze, boiled over and failed me, And said, because he could not Flag down every driver on the road, That boy’s gonna kill somebody one day. Benjamin, bony hero of the low life, Virgil of the darker ways, I remember, Months after you signed up your years To the army, how you came back In neat creases and olive cap, And sat down at the family table As if you had a place there, telling Tales of the drill and the hard march And orders to move out, my parents Giving each other that fisheyed look, Surprised by your poise before us In the kitchen chair, and wondering who, In the late fifties, in Louisiana,  Would be dumb enough to make this Lanky chuckleheaded boy in a rank skin Private, first class. ...