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Hole
One morning they dig up the sidewalk and leave. No sign of the truck, only the large, dark shadow digging and digging, piling up sludge with a hand shovel beside the only tree. Two o’clock I come by and he’s slumbering in the grass beside rat holes. Three and he’s stretched across a jagged stonewall, folded hands tucked beneath one ear— a beautiful young boy smiling, not the heavy, large shadow who can’t breathe. Four-thirty and the August heat takes one down here. He’s pulled up an elbow joint some three feet round. At seven I head home for the night, pass the fresh gravel mound, a soft footprint near the manhole like the “x” abuelo would place beside his name all the years he couldn’t write.