by John Grey
We’d stop and watch
through holes in the wood,
hard-hatted men
sloshing through mud
or at the wheel of heavy machinery
or turning giant cement makers
or wielding steel beams into place.
The door from child to man
was a loose knot in a makeshift fence,
an eye pressed hard against its rough edges,
stealing a thousand images of muscle,
metal, concrete, sweaty foreheads,
all ingested without explanation,
a head full of clues
long before we knew there was a mystery.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink, and Tenth Muse. His latest books Subject Matters, Between Two Fires, and Covert are available through Amazon; and he has work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.
header image: composite includes “tomatoes through a knot hole” (center removed) by safoocat, which is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
