by E. Martin Pedersen
an old brick cesspool
six-foot underground cube
bottomless soak pit
from another century
in his new overgrown backyard
buried somewheres
in Spadafora, Sicilia, Italia
where that bugger be
over here maybe be
banging shovels on the ground we
straight out from the indoor privy
about … here.
jump, man, jump
we dug, busted the top
off that sucker, got down and dirty
and laughed about the stink
we laughed a lot, at the lack
of stink, then the relatives came
over, we laughed till it bounced
off them, we’re rolling in waste
up to our waists (not really)
talking about how disgusting
rats and cockroaches be
though we didn’t find any
still we finished the job
got a pile of bricks
we saved ourselves
a pile of compost
for tomatoes that were
never planted, forever change
the face of the earth
restoring the earth
one old cesspool in one
old backyard in Sicily
at a time.
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