Dust Digger

DUST DIGGER

There's a man
digging up earth like a dog
tearing at the pale soil with his hands

he howls with such insistence
that I'm steered from my bowl
of blood red pasta
to really stare at the tv

he looks right back
his sun dried face
imploring me to pick a cross
any cross

I will him to be lucky
to find from the jumble of white sticks
the prize of his dead son

as he flings more dirt
his wails flap in the wind
like torn sails

so he throws himself
to the ground and beats it
and he's lost in a cloud

say it was here
my irish father might choose
to use a shovel
and my english mother
(preferring to swallow her pain
like a hard boiled sweet)
might implode and disintegrate

if she were not already
part of the dust
that blows us all together