Starling at the New Food Truck
A poem by Marianne Szlyk

Starling at the New Food Truck
Smaller, more dapper than a crow,
the yellow-beaked starling dances,
skips, and hops over cracked asphalt
in front of the sleek food truck.

Banda from an AM station
shakes the truck parked behind gas pumps,
a broken air machine, and cars
for sale. Neither the music or

the carne asada with fries
or white cheese and bean pupusas
reach drivers who surge upstream
like frenzied fish on a river.

Color of oil floating on rainwater,
the bird could be dancing for scraps
to music he doesn’t hear, at
least not the way we humans do.

His song is Morse Code with nothing
but dashes, squeaking signs of stores
long shut. He finds his food in yards
and swamps across the narrow bridge,

not just in scraps we leave.

About the Author:

When Marianne Szlyk was a child, she used to spend her summers at Nature Training School near Worcester, MA. Now, she watches birds and turtles on YouTube. Her most recent book is Why We Never Visited the Elms (Poetry Pacific), which is available on Amazon. Her poems have appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Verse-Virtual.

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