The Spring

Beating asphalt into highway potholes

        pickup truck we'd loaded

road repair stock shed & yard

a day so hot the asphalt went in soft.

        pipe and steel plate tamper

took turns at by hand

then drive the truck rear wheel

a few times back and forth across the fill–

finish it off with bitchmo around the edge.

the foreman said let's get a drink

& drove through the woods and flower fields

        shovels clattering in back

into a black grove by a cliff

        a rocked in pool

        feeding a fern ravine

                      tin can to drink

numbing the hand and cramping in the gut

surging through the fingers from below

        & dark here–

let's get back to the truck

get back on the job.