Tunnel 40

Written as a response to Alicja Kwade's sculpture, TunnelTeller

Improbable Poetry Tour, October 2019 at 

The Crane Estate, Ipswich, Ma

Tunnel 40

Each night

when all is quiet

armed with a shovel,

the digging begins.

Metal hitting rock

the ting of toil

unmovable, stuck where I am.

Beads of sweat pool

drip

down my arms

salty drops of disappointment.

Rather than digging down

I propel forward

an easier route through turmoil—

a passage, not a deepening.

Defeat fills the shovel

as each heave behind me

yields more dirt in front of me.

Face smeared with mud

Hands swollen with blisters

Body aching with exhaustion—

I surrender—

toss the shovel to the side

exit the interminable tunnel.

Walking the path forward

leaping over boundaries

ignoring warnings

and claiming my own destination.