he ate pork skins
with hot sauce
on the sagging brown sofa,
drinking beer from a can,
watching NASCAR
in faded blue shorts
and a wife-beater T,
yelling
to cheer on
the young driver
with the shaved head
who was in second place.
he grew weed
in the woods
by a small creek
which he tended
on evenings
and weekends
sold on the side,
to help feed his five kids
by his three ex wives
two of whom
hated his guts
because driving a truck
didn’t pay for all
he had done in his life.
