a poem by Justin Hyde

parallel and slack of ambition in a truck stop booth

a purple beetle
crawls down my arm
as faces on the overhead tv
hustle styrofoam hot dogs.
feelers twitching
he surveys the human shapes:
lost and abandoned,
driftwood riddled with hope.
he glances up through the window
at the sun:
clubfooted and anemic
jogging listlessly in a dogeared loop as
the coherent years of our lives
are spent in the salami opera
of a garbage man's smoke-break.
the purple beetle
shouts at the top of his lungs.
there is no retort.
he shrugs his shoulders
crawls back up my arm
and disappears into a slot
behind my ear.

© Justin Hyde