Martin O’Connor

Chicken Barbecue
 
This is the New Kettlewell fire hall crew
emerging from dirt-road-scarred pick-ups and
yawning their way through the four-thirty dew.
They light the pit, and with veteran hands,
rack all the halves for the fall barbecue.
Their talk rides shotgun with misty blue wind,
hums football, deer stands — all things that matter —
now and then rumbles Lucky Strike laughter.

No mortgages due while flipping the racks,
no shot glass at midnight after she'd gone,
just the witch hazel sun climbing their backs,
and lonely ghost cries of loons on the pond.
Their neighbors tease them with good-natured cracks,
then carry off tinfoil treasures they'd won.
The fire hall crew, work done by midday,
in battered old trucks, drive slowly away.

Martin O’Connor is a 29-year high school social studies teacher who writes poetry whenever he can.  He recently had a poem published in The Road Not Taken.