Backhoe

Stunned after popping awake in the pit

then revving up and wheeling to halt and

pitch with bear-paw finesse,

July yellow fenced in high noon,

nourished by sunstroke like the god’s wild

offspring, monster treads scarring the coffee mud

it troubles to foam when it’s spurred to—

oblivious to car-flicker and people-slick

skimming the windscreen, glimpsing leafy river,

a blasé operator mans the sticks,

lipping a smoke and humming, slyly posing

and flipping his head, as on a night of fitful tango

under the crooning Grand Central and sodium arch of cloud.

**

Benjamin Gantcher's poems have appeared in several journals, including
Tin House, Slate, Drunken Boat, and Archipelago, as well as in the
DIAGRAM anthology. In 2005 he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As of
May 2006, he will be a poetry editor of the on-line journal failbetter.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/gantcherb_poems.htm