This is an original poem.

"Running Late for Work, Stuck Behind a Slow Truck"

I will forever remember you, BZA 1199

down-tempo, large Ford F150, strolling

through wooden and stone suburbia.

You slowed at my gale of Misfits

and Nirvana, raunchy guitar and drums

bellowing at you to move on. Shit brown,

the color of your truck, and possibly

your mind; corroded from when

cigarettes were not regulated and

too many gin and tonics after your wife,

you neglect to give attention to while

you are tied into gazing over old war stories

contained in large book; red, black, and white,

complains that the dyer is busted for the fifth time.

You ease into your seat like you ease into your recliner,

staring blankly ahead, pondering why you had

“Devil Dog” written across your forearm, if it

was only for three years. I speed past you, and

you swing your arms, blankets with Marine,

sailor-Jerry tattoos and place hex on me that God

will make me to be like you one day, the same God

that placed you into a cardboard house to rot, but

as I burst by in a car half your size, I know that’s not my God.

— Alex Hawkins