Dan Schall

Sifting the Overburden

In cobalt fog the skid loader grumbles,
a sentinel without relief. The mason

buzzsaws the last chunks of concrete
from my grandfather’s front steps,

blade teeth tipped with diamonds
like so much of his wisdom

engraved on my child eyes.
This is true as his chess board

I dig out of storage each Easter, each piece
whittled and jigsawed by hand, the king

emerging from a dusty scrap of balsam
in the peace of his basement, his prison

badge left hanging on the key ring
one more Saturday. True as his hunger

for the right words, eroded by his stroke,
how he hauled himself to the kitchen

not for bread and water, as he promised
my grandmother, but to lighten

her burden in his own way, swallowing
the crack of his pistol. The saw carves sparks

into morning, stone rolling, broken,
gravel sliding loose, brushed from veins

of earth opened after years of quiet,
yawning their breath into the sun.

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Dan Schall lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Arcadia University. His work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, streetnotes, Cactus Heart Press and other journals.