the excavator
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I am climbing the hill
holding hands with a man who isn’t my son’s father. Tonight, the moon is a wrecking ball. Cresting, I see the big machine bathed in silver light. Stars float like dust motes swirling a black window of sky. A strange construction site. We find ourselves here, without any scaffolding in the middle of the night on a hill in a town far from my baby, who would be saying Arm! Boom! Bucket! Who would be saying Scoop it! Lift it! Dump it out! Who would be saying More work! Tomorrow I’ll be back home with him and his dad, pushing his stroller up the hill to watch the workers on Church Street, hobbling over asphalt that’s been hacked up and crumbled for months. Neon safety vests, a different kind of sweat, and different cigarettes. Here, there is only freshly shifted earth, only a new hole. I could be buried in a pile of rubble, or scooped up out of the ground. |
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Julia C. Alter is an MFA candidate in Poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Recent poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming from Palette Poetry, Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her partner and young son. Her website is www.alterpoetry.com.