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U-Haul Truck

June 17, 2019 Daniel Eastman

Thanks to Cargo contributor Daniel Eastman, for Cargo Lit’s first ever SoundCloud edition!

Check out Dan’s reading of his prose poem, “U-Haul Truck,” up now on SoundCloud. Miss a word? Scroll down to read below.

 

 

U-Haul Truck
She had her ashy, chapped heels up on the dashboard of the U-Haul truck. She had slipped her torn, tattered Chuck Taylors on the floor of the U-Haul truck. Olive-toned, tatted up, bicycle thighs rode high in the August breeze of the U-Haul truck. Skin-deep symbols of self-expression extended from her knees to her feet in a U-Haul truck. Me with my stained plain white tee and cargo shorts in the driver’s seat of a U-Haul truck. Bare legs sweated and stuck to pleather interior of a U-Haul truck. Unseen were the forever marks we gave one another in a U-Haul truck. It was an older model, boxy with low-throttle, no CD player, no adapter, just a burned-out tuner, only static between the two of us, in a U-Haul truck. Oh, the radio silence of a U-Haul truck. Man, six hours is a long way with nothing to say to an ex-friend and an old flame in a U-Haul truck. Former consorts, now nonconcentric, found a means to their ending in a U-Haul truck.We had packed and strapped our belongings in the back, locked down that ratcheted latch of a U-Haul truck. She had always owned more, I noted morosely–collections of books, mostly unread, records, and ephemera–in the U-Haul truck. I, on the other hand, had my own motives, always ready to go without notice, just a stack of clothes and a bag to tote it in a U-Haul truck. And now it’s her and me and these catalytic rumblings, refusing to be muffled in a U-Haul truck. That summer was so hot, man, the heat was oppressive, I was running a temper, I was hotheaded, I was aggressive, in a U-Haul truck. I gripped fistfuls of steering wheel and my tanned knuckles turned bleach white in a U-Haul truck.I kept turning to speak, seeking something to say, I’m not looking for a do-over but there’s no excuse for a cold shoulder in a U-Haul truck. We had hatchets to exhume and ice to break, in a U-Haul truck. Something about the way nothing brings people together like shared pain in a U-Haul truck. Like abandoning a shared home and heading down opposite roads in the same U-Haul truck. We are separate and we are together. A languid drive had begun under a leonine late-August sun in a U-Haul truck. Three hundred and sixty minutes matched the miles of muted mouths and dials in a U-Haul truck.

 

 

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About Daniel Eastman

Daniel Eastman grew up in upstate New York and currently lives in Pennsylvania with his wife. His writing has been featured in Stone Canoe Literary Journal, The Write Launch, and Sink Hollow Literary Journal. He is the 2019 recipient of the S.I. Newhouse Prize for Creative Nonfiction.

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