Winter wasn't through with March.
The vernal sun at lunch time
at the missile base warmed
the dark bare fields and my face.
Demoted now
from Battery Commander's driver
to garbage separator at the mess hall
separating the edible from the inedible
into a battered garbage can.
I stood outside the doorway
to the kitchen listening to the men inside.
No words distinct enough to know
what anyone was talking about,
Just the mush mouth vowels of Alabama
and the twang of Texas in their voices,
boasting, boisterous, no doubt
full of conquest and bullshit.
Then they tumbled out of the dining hall
bearing their stainless steel trays
and pebbled plastic glasses
and half full mugs of lukewarm Army coffee.
And I began my task:
stacking cups and glasses into dishwasher racks,
scraping the remains of that day's Southern-themed cuisine
off the steel trays sectioned like giant tv dinners.
Clods of mashed potatoes, dotted with black-eyed peas.
A swash of succotash, gray shreds of over done pot roast
slices of white bread stained with pale country gravy
corn kernels floating in pink pools
of melted strawberry ice cream.
It all went in the can,
an ever-changing three dimensional construction
as I pretended to be a culinary Jackson Pollack.
A splay of wilted collard greens accented
with a scattered splash of corn.
The chitlins which had proven to be
less than popular with their pissy scent,
now a shiny beige to bomb with peas.
A magpie perched on the eaves above
screeched a complaint, beseeching me
to toss a crust, some morsel.
At thirteen hundred hours,
I stacked the trays and racks
of cups and glasses on a cart
and wheeled them into the kitchen
where Ahmet and Emre stood at the sinks
and pointed to the spot where they
wished me to leave the cart.
They were friendly now that I shared
the status of Turkish gastworkers.
I was free of duty til Taps would blow.
Free to bask out on the steps
and read my book.
If it hadn't been for Samuel Beckett
I don't think I could have done that gig.
Farmer Herzfeld drove his grumbling tractor
plowing the field beyond the base,
awakening his sleeping soil.
Waved a leather-gloved hand.
He'd be back after evening chow
to collect the can of slops
to feed his hungry swine.
