The
Dig
He is filling the
bucket with stones
And bringing the darkness up on a braided
rope.
This will go on all day between the elm and iron
gate.
The galvanized tin sings when it touches the rough
balk
And the winch listens and the rope grows warm.
All day he
has raised the dirt into this heaven of air.
I did not help. I poked my cup into the round
Eye of the bucket. I
watched the shadows
Crawl inside and the wind limp
stiffly
Through the little crooked places of tree and
brandy.
All day he brings the darkness up until my heart
Is the
bucket's round O of Perpetual astonishment.
I put my hand across
my eyes and listen
To the winch wind the rope around its
shaft
And when I look a lizard is putting
Into my husband's
hand her white
Stomach where one blue vein rides
From the groin
to the throat.
I could have watched forever that slow work of
muscle
In her neck, and something in the way he held her
Made
me think of what we saw in ancient Eglon once:
A woman buried with
her head in her lap, the cure
For infidelity, the old lust
over-ended by the axe.
My husband worked all one night and in the
end
I think he grew to love her, especially there,
With the
earth
on her like a black wing.from Hotel Fiesta by lynn
EmanuelThe White
DressHomage to Sharon
StoneInventing Father in
Las
Vegas
Like
God,On Waking after Dreaming of
RaoulLike God,
Last Updated: 08/07/99
Created By:
J.H. Brugos