Today's poem is by Maxwell Suzuki

Excavation
       

Soon they will bring
their trowels, squirrel-
hair brushes, mother-
blessed tin buckets.
Faces hoping
to discover
the next ash-blanketed
town. In uncovering,
they will find:
stubbed toes, lone-
liness faking exuberance,
passports layered in
countries lazily
stamped. It is in
the discovery which
makes something valuable—
the way it is wanted
in nonchalance. Egg
yolk unbroken, cane sugar
dissolved and drunk,
weed smoked to the bitter
roach, bean sprouts
wiggling out of
bike tracks. Buried for us:
toy trucks, Dragon Ball Z
DVDs, lumpia so hot it
melts the Styrofoam plates
it rests on. Yes, these
are things plastic and
recognizable and made
for us both.

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Copyright © 2024 Maxwell Suzuki All rights reserved
from Bust of an Athlete
Iron Horse Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission