Ode to a Hand Truck

Eohippus of the truck family, divergent offspring of wheelbarrows, what led the hand truck to stand on its head & press its nose to the ground? What could it possibly have learned from the worm & the tons of dirt that pass through a worm’s stomach? How to let fall, perhaps, boneless as hope. How to take its time. Stack truck, sack truck, bag barrow, trolley, it tips backward with alacrity, trusting in vinyl grips & ball bearings. Its faith moves refrigerators. Like a rowboat, it makes its pilot also face away from the direction they’re going: blind faith must be shared in order to work. The job over, I return the hand truck to its spot under the barn forebay, between the Ford dump truck & the old wheelbarrow, no longer red, on which so little now depends.