Chevrons

The work order said chevrons, eight of them,
on the bend below the Ferrell place. Yellow,
reflective, galvanized post. Dale had the spec
on a clipboard he kept out of the wet.

We started at the near end, where the guardrail
runs newer than the rail on either side of it,
one bright section bolted between two dull ones.
Nobody on the crew said anything about that.

The ground was soft from the week of rain.
The auger went in easy and came up clean.
Dale read the stations off and I set the stakes
and the boards went up in the order they came off the truck.

At the fourth post I cleared the growth back
and found where the bank had been opened.
Grass had come over most of it. The cut
was still there underneath, a long scoop
out of the clay going down toward the ditch,
and at the bottom of it a strip of chrome
gone dull.

That was well back of our first board.
Whatever left the road here left it before the bend.

I stood up. Dale called the next station.
I set the stake.

He signed the sheet on the hood of the truck.
I signed under him. We loaded the auger
and went on to the next job.

Driving out I came around it in the dark.
The boards took my lights and gave them back,
yellow, then yellow, the whole curve
ahead of me one board at a time.

Where the bank is opened, nothing did.