7/28/2019 The Miner Carves Out a Niche
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The miner carves out a niche
Each scrape of the shovel
every dug out notch
or carved tunnel
feeds the ache
that is carried in hands
permanently blackened and a heart
lost in the timelessness of day
to day searches
and the demands
never able to be met.
Like the puppet that walked,
it amazes everyone
he rises each day, dresses
in the same worn clothes,
finds his boots beneath the bed
and sets forth to work in the mines
where he excavates through the hours.
His mind
distantly remembers
that time in sunlight and blue skies
sunbathing, his wife in red bathers
running towards the waves,
her white thighs
yet to show the purple veins
hated as much as those he digs
every day.
At night they sat together -
he whittled,
they spoke of children
and as the distant waves
crashed upon the shore,
in darkness, with hope,
they fucked themselves
into a future
they both wished for
and secretly feared.
