Construction Site

Another day-glow orange morning

of jack-hammering men in the street,

their steam-shovel coughing black fumes

into my second floor office window.

At random moments, the commotion

stops, the crew circling their black hole

to confer like psychoanalysts

at a case conference. And my patients

respond to the sudden quiet as if

silence grants permission to wonder

out loud- how deep these men will dig

before they uncover the problem,

what mysteries lay buried beneath

the road’s torn surface, how much

they admire the man who works

the shovel’s probing arm.