Teardown in winter

Stripped from inside    all shutters and shingles
30-year Duron green    flashes tired leaves
A spray-painted arrow    GAS HERE CUT LAST
Will show some field surgeon    due any day

A motley tower sits    ten feet of old plywood
It gathers the electric    keeps the street line
Live through the demo    then buzzing alone
And blazing worklights    against the fresh frame

The cellar was dumped out    dirt cords for a furnace
But the backhoe is folded    its trailer splayed
Both bystanders now    fueled up to wait
Their part in the tear-down stopped    until spring

Now the house is stuck    wet leaf-pasted cocoon
No caterpillar to transform    no moth
To shudder off    bearing the last year’s work
All its struggles thrown aloft    as though new

So the year accumulates    its tragedies
Still rolled in last month’s papers    piled up
Beneath this electric maypole    its current
Grounded, trickled out    across a waiting earth

Copyright Josh Jacobs 2014