The Men

By B. H. Fairchild b. 1942

As a kid sitting in a yellow vinyl

booth in the back of Earl’s Tavern,

you watch the late-afternoon drunks

coming and going, sunlight breaking

through the smoky dark as the door

opens and closes, and it’s the future

flashing ahead like the taillights

of a semi as you drop over a rise

in the road on your way to Amarillo,

bright lights and blonde-haired women,

as Billy used to say, slumped over

his beer like a snail, make a real man

out of you, the smile bleak as the gaps

between his teeth, stay loose, son,

don’t die before you’re dead. Always

the warnings from men you worked with

before they broke, blue fingernails,

eyes red as fate. A different life

for me, you think, and outside later,

feeling young and strong enough to raise

the sun back up, you stare down Highway 54,

pushing everything—stars, sky, moon,

all but a thin line at the edge

of the world—behind you. Your headlights

sweep across the tavern window,

ripping the dark from the small, humped

shapes of men inside who turn and look,

like small animals caught in the glare

of your lights on the road to Amarillo.

Source: The Arrival of the Future (Alice James Books, 2000)

Biography

B.H. Fairchild was born in 1942 in Houston, Texas, and grew up in small towns in Texas and Kansas. The son of a lathe operator, he attended the University of Kansas and the University of Tulsa. His poetry explores the empty landscapes of the region of his birth, and the lives of its working-class residents, including his own family and friends. Frequently described as a poet of the “sacred,” Fairchild’s work has gained renown . . .

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