Rain
by Paul Smith

  1. I pave
  2. Asphalt
  3. Concrete
  4. Rain is my enemy
  5. We can’t pave when it rains
  6. Men wait for my call
  7. Do we pave?
  8. Or do we not pave?
  9. Will it rain?
  10. Or will it not?
  11. Do we fire up the plant?
  12. Do we call out the trucks?
  13. Do we watch the sky?
  14. Do we watch our watch?
  15. We make a call
  16. Yes, we pave!
  17. The men come in
  18. The plant starts up
  19. The trucks arrive
  20. The Barber-Greene waits
  21. For hot mix
  22. And it rains!
  23. Just like they said
  24. The men are drenched
  25. The trucks are turned around
  26. But it stops
  27. The sun comes out
  28. The men shout
  29. The inspectors shake their heads
  30. We broom the water off the sub-grade
  31. The inspectors nod
  32. Steam rises off the Barber-Greene
  33. The trucks are called back
  34. Smell the bitumen
  35. The heat sears
  36. The mix goes down
  37. There is poetry in asphalt
  38. No iambic pentameter
  39. No onomatopoeia
  40. We stop traffic
  41. To let our trucks in
  42. Brakes squeal
  43. Horns honk
  44. Motorists call us dirty names!
  45. More poetry!
  46. And at the end
  47. A smooth road
  48. Where you don’t spill
  49. Your cup of coffee
  50. Driving on it
  51. It is rolled flat and tight
  52. We pave
  53. Now it's raining somewhere else
Packingtown Review – Vol.10, Spring 2018

Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives near Chicago, has been published in the Rockford Review, Oyez, Convergence, and others. He likes taking the bus around Chicago. He is a proud member of Rockford Writers Guild. Paul was a contributor to Volume 5 and Volume 8 of Packingtown Review.

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