A Man Beside the New Jersey Turnpike          


Among the marshy meadow-lands
and garbage hills, this sudden patch
of field grass holds a listing row of
hen-houses, old and gray, and a man 
sprawled on a wooden seat of sorts, 
its back a scaffolding shoulder high.

Arms flung up and over the crosspieces,
head lolling to one side, he is so still,
framed between the sheds and a pick-up,
he must be a scarecrow. But he is too fat
for a scarecrow, stomach yeasty in blue
overalls. And scarecrows hang on poles
where something grows.

So he has to be a man, asleep, or even dead
in a field beside the Turnpike, the city's spires
distant behind him; he has to be a man, legs
spread in the weeds, arms hanging over wooden
bars, and head fallen to one side, facing the traffic.

Appeared in an earlier version in Grandmother's Milk, Singular Speech Press, 1995.