How many times have I driven past
and not noticed the beauty of the abandoned
truck, its black-tinted windows safeguarding
a homeless man's makeshift bed, or taken in
that war of names, the faint, illegible,
legible scribblings dashed off in weak light
of a nearby lamppost just before city cops,
seemingly patrolling only this part of town,
rush to manhandle some shy kid who longs
merely for the miraculous,--a recognition unfound
among his six younger siblings whose sprawling
caretaking fades him to a name among names
when needed & called in their cramped
walk-up apartment? Here, in the open
gallery a lot makes, a canvas for the poor,
this non-erasable truck, a quick aerosol emboss
where he swiftly tattoos and revives each letter
in a made-up name like gold till it glitters even
in darkness on a city with its spilled
tires, crumbling facades, and sidewalk blossoming
weeds detonating dreams of permanence.
No wonder then, each would-be immortal hasn't
climbed the truck's roof and tagged the upper reaches,
having to scurry their scrawlings fast enough to sign
evidence of having been here: Dondi, Samo,
Lee, or Oz, then a make on the run.
By Major Jackson