Circling

Here, where our future waits,
past this run of fading highway
and devastation, roads
splitting open from another rough winter

of long hall trucks, past the bleached out salt
burnt grass, silos of salt.
Through hollowed paths of breaking gravel
and further down, into the inferno, seventh circle

of hell in this mud thick valley. Somehow we'll drag
our exhausted asses upright on mouthfuls of gas station coffee,
never thinking there wasn’t a way out of this life,

all of us waiting for the backhoe to bear down,
take out the rest of the trees in front of us
ready for our part in this to begin

where those few remaining maples
stood in front of us, stripped bare
at the edge of this construction site.
A hawk above it all, circling.

Robert Walicki’s work has appeared in over 50 journals, including Pittsburgh City Paper, Fourth River,Chiron Review, and Red River Review. A Pushcart and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert has published two chapbooks: A Room Full of Trees (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014) and The Almost Sound of Snow Falling (Night Ballet Press), which was nominated to the 2016 List of Books for New York City’s Poets House. His first full-length collection, Black Angels, is now available from Pittsburgh’s Six Gallery Press.