Blood from Stones

The road ahead a bandage
leaking grey blood from stones.
The snow plow brutal,
carelessly lifting scabbed edges
until the gore overflows.

Spring always promises renewal,
but freeze and thaw also open
old wounds making them bleed.

A merry, mazy life we lead,
threading the car’s needle through
holes torn in the asphalt’s fabric.

Some holes are so large they have
lives of their own, and names –
Grand Canyon, Yawning Gap,
Patty’s Peril, Big Bertha, each one
well-known to neighbors.

Others are pornographic,
their open orifices painted,
laughing in scorn, dentated
vaginas ready for anything.

Such decorated potholes
 are soon filled, their crude
messages swiftly erased.

Comment:

Three flat tires in the last month and spring’s potholes still out there, waiting to trap me. Apparently, one neighborhood on the North Side of the river decided to decorate their potholes with pornographic drawings. These were swiftly filled and their messages totally erased. Alas, we on the South Side are not so daring. We don’t go out and paint our potholes. Personally, I wish we did. July – and many potholes are still there.

Not only that, the road into town is being repaired. Hooray! However, the tarmac was stripped off two weeks ago and has yet to be replaced. Boo! More than that, at the end of our street, just before the highway, one or two enormous potholes still gape. They lead directly to a dip that rises abruptly when it meets with the now stripped highway. A champion clunker that – a genuine tank-trap. I think at least two of my flat tires occurred after going over that one.

It reminds me of my grandfather’s stories about WWI and ‘going over the top’. Now, each time I approach it in the car, I call out loudly, “Look out, grandpa, here I come.” I call that particular pothole Grandpa’s Revenge. My own personal name. I don’t know what the neighbors call it. And I don’t know why grandpa is seeking revenge! But below the tires, the pothole awaits, gnashing its teeth.