Maxine
Kumin
I stand in a clump of dead athletes.
They had been buried upright
in Olympic poses. One
a discobolus clutching a bird's nest.
One a runner trailing laces of snakeskin.
One a boxer exploding toads of cracked leather.
I call in the hatchet, the mattock, the crowbar
the dog with his tines for
the trick is to get at the taproot.
Each one is as thick as a weightlifter's thigh.
First you must rupture those handholds but
each has a stone in its fist.
Each one encloses beetles that pinch
like aroused crabs. Some
will not relax even when
bludgeoned about the neckbone.
Next you must chip up kneecaps and scapulas.
Knuckles and hammertoes fly in the dustbin
until on my hands and knees
I ring something metal. An ox shoe
hatched underground for a hundred years
a gristle of earth in its mouth.
I see them at the pasture wall
the great dumb pair
imperfectly yoked and straining
straining at the stone boat and
meanwhile the shoe in my hand
its three prongs up on the half-moon.
It is enough that the lilacs must go,
a mess of broken bones in the gully.
I give the shoe back to the earth
for now I am a woman
in a long-gone dooryard
flinging saved dishwater onto
these new slips.
"On Digging Out Old Lilacs" from House,
Bridge, Fountain, Gate, by Maxine Kumin (Viking Press). ©
Maxine Kumin 1975.
Used by permission of the author.
