Aftermine

Once there was a girl, excavator
of her own foxhole (on past the groundlings, the dirtworms;
that place where diggerwasps nest too deep: the slag).

I can still hear my father (inhuman spasm) on mishandling
the shovel, throw out his back, call out O Jesus and mean it
for the first time, O Jesus.

It is still
a bomb, a boom, a swallow. A breast plate undone.
Nothing is worse than the prospect of cold supper.