A funny little man with a bent back and one foot—
the other he lost in the “big freeze of ’83”
while drinking the last of his Sterno
and breaking rock with a can of tuna—
smells of wood smoke and burning tires.
He runs calluses through his John the Baptist wave,
and says the denim in his jeans
is greased with the handshakes he’s had
since he picked those pants up
at the Salvation Army.
He mutters as he listens
to the semis snap steel plates above,
in his hand, he holds cards with tattered edges,
and crayon pictures, memories, he says,
of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Father’s Day.
