Poems of the Junkyard

êPoemb by Russell Maraño THE JUNKYARD Shaped like a goat horn, between the bend of the creek and the road, stretching from the narrow base of the swinging bridge to the broad base of the dilapidated tin baler looming up from the bank of the creek was the junkyard proper, mounds of entangled tin and iron in the yard, offering fractured glimpses of the buildings. THE DOGWOOD BUSH Henry Mueller loaded bales of tin onto the flatbed truck on the dirt road behind the baler room. The truck-made road arched around the steep bank leading up from the creek. Sumac trees and wildflowers strayed along the steep escarpment. Leaning dangerously toward the muddy spring road, was a single dogwood bush. The stunted growth, c£ike fiwnÂuuïd 33 THE BANTAM MAN Taking confident, furtive steps, the bantam man, dressed in black leather and carrying a black leather bag, came down the elevated leg of the Y in the road leading to Glen Elk and the bridge. Sam greeted him laughing and friendly. They shook hands. The bantam man was dry and diffident. Monday morning, dressed in his black leather, the bantam man was deftly driving Sam's semitrailer. He drove for Sam for years, in the town where his woman had brought their son. And he raised the son, a bantam copy of himself, until the son, as the father had done, joined the Army. Then the woman left the town. Years later, the bantam man died of a heart attack in a hotel for strays that had been converted from a whorehouse. Sam, his son, the woman, his black leather clothes, had all been a long time gone. 34 with frail black and white petals, mercilessly applauded by the splash of mud from the groaning wheels of weighted down trucks. The hearty bush with its frail petals flowered many springs after the junkyard vanished, underbrush covered the road, and the wheels of trucks had quit spinning. SAM Sam hitchhiked through the Cumberland mountains winding his way West into West Virginia. He was a stocky man, above medium height, a shy melancholy in the intelligent blue eyes of his Semitic features. Hitchhiking, his twinkling friendship filled the cars and trucks that picked him up, miles after they'd left him at the side of the winding road. Reaching Clarksburg, he went to work for Max Levy in the nonferrous metal business. He slept nights in Max's office, saving his money and in two years he had his own junkyard. The junkyard prospered adding building after building. 35 ...