The Stuffed Bear

It is always 1:51

in her cab, the clock

frozen for last call

or for a mid-afternoon pick up.

Two drunks wanting

only to hear one more

Tammy Wynette song

or the weekly shopping trip

for the elderly woman

in the brown coat

or the couple bound for the airport

to fly away from Music City.

On the dash, her stuffed bear,

the taxi’s totem spirit stares

vacantly out the rear window.

He knows all

there is to know

about life at 1:51,

but he’s not talking.

Truck Driver

He had driven the big rigs,

returned a day ahead as a surprise

to find the woman no good.

Mornings at six,

his cab was always early.

He’d stand in the driveway,

lean on the fender

cigarette dangling, hair slicked.

He was happy to turn the key

and move. Once a month, he’d fight

his girlfriend’s worthless brother

over money owed and relish

the Sunday at home.

With time crawling and cabs galore,

I heard he shipped out for the higher buck,

the long haul, danger at home,

a new truck.

Originally from a mill town on the banks of Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, John Peter Beck is a professor in the labor education program at Michigan State University where he co-directs a program that focuses on labor history and the culture of the workplace, Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives. His poetry has been published in a number of journals including The Seattle Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Louisville Review and Passages North among others.