Diggers
We brought two diggers home,
furious black engines, charged and alive,
fire eyes with a touch of white.
Outside, they clawed the earth,
ripped back its skin, made visible
its bones, a kingdom of limpet arms,
divorced fingers outlining tales
in tongues of dust across the canvas
of the cold travertine noce.
The wind pressed hard that day,
and the sky, seeping ink-rich thick
and slow, emerged along the edge
of tight held lips on broken ground.
But now the earth is smooth,
flat, ironed, surface clean,
and we talk again, imagining
their next act, an outline of our lives
sure to be revealed
in the magician hands of early spring.
Marcello Giovanelli (@mmgiovanelli) teaches English in the West Midlands. His poems have been published in a number of web magazines including The Poetry Village and Poetry Plus.