frustration #3

you won’t say they’re unfeeling
the cable men digging a coffin-sized hole
obliterating a season’s worth of green
growing by your back fence—
if anything you feel
for them, waist-deep and it’s snowing
and despite your best compost efforts
the earth is still clay—
after all they moved
the plastic gnome smoking his pipe
cross-legged against the rubble,
serene