Trailer

On my way back from Boulder I broke down
in South Salt Lake City the day before Memorial Day
the Mustang threw a rod after a rough go on I-70.
AAA towed me to Best Western and then I rented a U Haul and
drove back to Eugene listening to Bobby McFerrin.

I wound up selling hotel packages to Houstonians
for hotels in Houston in a boiler room above the UO Kinkos.
for four hours a day and each minute
was eleven hours and each day was twelve.

So then Rosco at PersonellSource asked me: mill or the office?
I said office because I had heard about the green chain
and I did not want to pull it.
Symantec took me into the Bon Marche building and
I corrected Australian addresses for their APAC ERP implementation.

I lunched with my dad each week and ate falafel.
Proud of my eight hour days and corporate cachet
he told me I was in the top percent of Eugenians. And at work I learned
in some remote Australian states mail is stuffed into a bag that hangs on a tree
and typing Bag on Tree was OK for the database.

Jessica liked the money
and we ate burgers and she never slept at the trailer,
even though the bed was large and comfortable.
So I often stayed at her place.
Her building had beach volleyball courts and I sat on her terrace and watched
the undergrads set shot in the sand.

The lady at the machine shop was convinced I rode my car
too hard. The rod broke through and messed up a cylinder.
It looked like Twombly took a hammer to inside of my engine.
I eventually pieced it together and I sold the cherry red
convertible to a Salem woman.

In the house above the trailer, my mom was in pain. Her hip
was bad and she did not want surgery so she had assortments
of pills and I found these very little ones—
They brought me back to the top of the first Flatiron rock
where I used to bark in happiness.