Field work

I listened in wonder when
Alex first told of bobtailing his load
from PMT to Tarzana,
or John T recalled his years
being dispatched from the hiring hall
to haul doubles from the City of Industry
to West LA,
or Mannie Labastida moaned about
break-bulk barns that
stole the Local’s jobs.

Within a year, I could toss these terms
of drivers and their daily class struggles
like a juggler’s balls,
one, two, three, even more,
the air scintillating to the flying light
of my rhetorical ball-shit,
rhetoric devoid of the transferred pallets,
potholed kidneys,
and daily harassment by dispatchers
that made their lingo sing.