Ken Poyner
Music
If you listen for enough years
The sound of the garbage truck,
Plodding its so many paces
Between the same sets of cans
That appear unbidden every garbage day,
Is a kind of music. Roar
And squeal and throttle back and
Bass of the mechanical arm extending, the
Percussion of contact, a slow
Chorus of hoist and then the bang
And rattle and the alto of the
Crush cycle: the kettle punctuation
Of the can dropped back in its place
And the roar again, maybe longer,
Maybe shorter than the last, but
Always in the same sequence.
A boy could lay down
A bit of accompaniment,
Slap the tenement steps, run
A broomstick along the fence,
Gather all the stray notes and organize
A product like good scraps pulled
Out of bad and made sweet.
Then the girls from the next garbage stop
Might come out in their hip
Huggers and halters, in their hand
Me down sundresses, and start
To grind to the boy’s chain and
Concrete boundaries, his sonorous fill
For the trash truck’s moan and shout
And happy feet beat. And the boy
Could dance from instrument to instrument
As the sound of the truck fades
And the girls would wink at him
As his sound grew with the truck’s
Diminishment, and the boy would tip
His imaginary hat and do an impression
With the girls still swaying and pushing
Hips and shoulders and breasts against
Evolution to then just the memory of music.
And some week, hope against hope, the boy,
With his own good rhythm and sound
Metrical sense, just might, fast hands and
Downtown discovered beat, get even,
Get valued, get lucky.
