Holiday Hand Grenades
I have the highway
mostly to myself
as I drive to my sister’s
for Christmas dinner
the convenience store
finally got in my brand
I puff contentedly
at my favorite cut rate smoke
the sky seems blue and tranquil just for me
then a truck 5 lengths up
tosses a beer can from
the passenger window
it explodes like ordinance
on the asphalt
and leaps like a Bouncing
Betty in a shrapnel
spray of foam
some psycho’s
lobbing full cans
my truck rocks
like a drunken elephant
as I lurch into the shoulder
to skirt the hillbilly
grenade
it pinwheels up and over
the hood and windshield
on the driver’s side
spewing suds
I give the tailgunner
a healthy quarter mile
later I pass the
crumpled pterodactyl bone
a mammoth streetlight wing
awaiting roadcrew discovery
and the old truck tire
leaning on the guardrail
a hobo too tired
to thumb for a ride
familiar things
to calm my nerves
on the radio, Springsteen
wants to change his
hair, his clothes, his face
and is trying to write a book
in my head, Yossarian
says they’re trying to kill me
you have to take it personally
if you want to survive
I’m pretty sick of both
of them, to be honest
I think of the beer
splattered on my truck
as the wipers push it around
with the dirt
it would make quite a story
if I get pulled over
“The truck’s been drinking
officer, not me”
but I bet he wouldn’t
be a Tom Waits fan
© Markus
Markus
The Loch Raven Review 