Broken Shovel
by Jared Carter
The blade snaps – breaks
through right below where
handle joins metal shaft –
while I’m digging day lilies
in the middle of the field
where all the old houses
used to stand.
Shovel I’ve had
for a good twenty-five years
and now it snaps.
I go on
digging, trying to set aside
the shaggy clumps.
Blade
sprung, won’t work anymore.
Like a sprained ankle, like
a bird with a broken wing.
What
do you do with something
that breaks, in this culture?
Throw it away, put it in
the dumpster, get rid of it.
Go buy a new one.
Broken
shovel. Handle still good.
Hickory, maybe, or ash.
I load
the wheelbarrow with clumps
of lily, cart them all the way
to the blue house, scoop
earth from the ground, along
the fence, still trying to use
the shovel. No dice.
Set them in.
Fetch water. Tamp them down.
Old shovel. Broken now. Good
for nothing.
Under the spigot
I wash off the blade. Back at
the garage, I take a rag,
coat the metal with fuel oil
for a last time.
If it was a horse,
gone lame after a dozen years,
what then? The knacker?
Glue factory?
I hang it back up
on the rack with the other tools.
Let it stay there, let it commune
with the axe, the spades and picks,
the rakes.
Where it belongs.