Digging a Hole

Digging beneath dappled shade,
And a chorus of applauding trees.
Crunch.
A sharp-spade chewing sound,
Metal hum like plucked wire.

Aching back, muddy smears,
And not a blister; just
A certain hardness of the skin,
Cracking like a gourd
Across the wrinkles of my thumb.

                “Why were you digging a hole?”
                She asked me, afterwards.
                “It felt” I answered,
                “Like the right thing to do
                At the time…”

Mulch smell, wet and bodily.
The hole opens, organic;
A ventricle, it gasps.
Fist-sized nuggets, stone hearts
Send sparks against the spade.

I use the steel edge as a pick,
And the earth splits like flesh.
I know when it’s deep enough.
Panting, I watch it breathe,
And revel in the audacity of its existence.

               “If you could bury something in your hole,
               What would it be?”
               “Myself” I said,
               Pretending it was a joke.

Walking back, spade in hand,
Like Neanderthal man,
A girl I once knew sees me;
Scowling, spade, mudsmears,
And thinks I’m going to kill her.

The next day I went back there
And filled it in, embarrassed,
As though it were something shameful.