Alone in the field,
a man drives a spade into the dark earth and
heaves it open
so it gasps in soft exhalation.
What are you looking for? I ask.
The scent of wild allium rises, green
and sharp. The field is littered
with hulks the size of groundhogs,
as if some weird war has been waged.
Their backs are furred in turf and look
too much like bodies.
Secrets
Michael Bazzett
Michael Bazzett’s fourth collection of poems, The Echo Chamber, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. His work has appeared in The Sun, the American Poetry Review, the Iowa Review, Threepenny Review, and Ploughshares, and his verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, The Popol Vuh (Milkweed 2018), was longlisted for the National Translation Award as well as named one of 2018’s ten best books of poetry by the New York Times.