DRUM-TRUCK CAME
51
than a warmth of what had been (the rosy bottom of a sunset cloud)
jumped off the moving truck and ran toward the lights.
* *
·X·
When Martha awoke it was night, alone on the back of the
moving truck. The warmth was still with her, but slightly. The glad–
ness was of her. Her life was wider now than the truck, her world
was larger. Our woman, o lovely Martha to live. She stood up and
looked over the sides of the truck, saw that the green was invisible, saw
gleams that were houses, earthbound stars. She turned and saw
the drum staring emptily at her, sounding her aloneness. Martha went
to the drum and took up the stick. Some small sense of duty quietly
born bade her continue the traditions of that world (as if it were her
world). She thought she would beat the drum and be so young now,
standing in the sun one morning like a field with the sun's weight on
it. Lean black colts would come to nibble, gather strength and life
from her, gather about her when she lay in the fields of her eyes and
bring her love. But really when she beat the drum (once, boom ...
it dies uneasily on the night) she realized that the truck was not her
world, that the honey of her breasts and on her tongue, the wild
grape taste, the excitement and the change, the bird's wild singing
and the flutter in her throat, would follow her back into her own small
sphere, a porous sphere now, a globe of glass where the many greens
reflect.
Suddenly the truck went slow (and the sound of the wheels and
the engine sound) and the lights were familiar now below. And sud–
denly there was a small white house and an orderly lawn, invisible
green (o Martha could see) and a clothesline there where the 5heets
and shirts hung white in the night air. Martha did not have to think
(Martha, our woman always) dropped the stick and jumped off the
truck, ran across the road to her gate. Her feet met the grass that was
moist after rain and the shirts were limp and cool against her face.
The bird in her throat gathered strength and took wing, flew from her
mouth and over the road, followed the truck as it rode out of town,
white signs flapping, politician asleep, hovered over our once truck
world, dipped to the drum which was silent and dead, alone on the
truck, and then flew back to Martha's lawn and found its place in
Martha's throat . . . to rest, and wait. Martha took the sheets and
shirts from the line, cool in her arms, cool against her face, and walked
into the earthbound star, her house, her home.
* * *
Drum-truck roaring out of town on the night after love, the
peaceful night. Drum-truck driving out of town with no one on the
back but a drum in the dark.
