Landscape, with Construction Worker, Ants, and Gull

“I couldn’t have waited. By the time you return
it would have rotted on the vine.” ~ Lucia Perillo

Danger, Peligro, reads the sign by the orange
cones and yellow tape at the street corner,
where a man in a hard hat is now going under
to investigate the contents of the sewer.

Danger, Peligro, chants the ant at the head
of a line trudging through the gutter:
such industry, just to steal a shard of sugar,
bear away grain that gleams on your shoulder

like a chip from a prehistoric glacier.
Is there someone in file waiting to sprint
when the warden isn’t looking, waiting
to unshackle the chains around the ankles?

Smoke from barges heaving by on the river,
smoke from the paper mills smudging the sky.
Stroke on a corner of blue canvas: either a gull,
or a wingspan strung of honey and wax and twine.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.