Breaking Ground

Breaking Ground

As solid as November ever is

to dig a grave today means

freeing the bucket and shovel

of October’s dwindling green,

it means greasing the entry

of each squeak going over

to murmur, the hum I’ve come

to remember of nuns under

the summer maples, how they

rumble, not through their mouth

but down into their hips

and thighs and the dark skies

of dirt.  My machine is needed

like this.  The old girl up the road

showed me just last week

when we walked past the white

birch line I’d just cut some of.

She showed me invisibly, with

a stroke curled fist, and deeper

than if she’d had a pickax. 

I’ve dug enough private graves,

always surveyed by the owner,

to know as we both walk back

to the house it won’t be long

now—I’d best tool up

that temperamental bucket.  And so.

Open and new, the can of grease.

Clean as can be bare hands.

Scoop like Crisco into biscuit dough.

Slap against the gleam of the silver

lift unsheathed.  Rub until that can

is by God empty.  Because listen:

it’s ok to whine in the woods

and get mired and cough and spit

and shit but this—when you go up

that drive this time—when the man

of the house is out to the under-

taker to order the prettiest urn a man

can bury (and he’ll be gone a while,

but don’t wait) go slow and brace

yourself.  Raise the fork and let her go

into the froze ground without

a buck or a sound.