Jackhammer – a poem (in process)
He thinks the asphalt boils
a hard and fragmenting birth
like skin bursting under machine-gun fire.
He might have been a soldier,
they say for glory, blessed
or magnified.
His body trembles sometimes
at night and sweats while he sleeps.
He works hard,
his wife confides,
but he tears at my skin
when we’re alone. She exposes
his marks on her arms and chest -
shame and pride approved
by her mother’s round and quilted gasps.
Copyright 2011, Michael Lamanna
