First published in Dear Poetry Journal

The officials circle ‘round you like mothers
peering into the well, looking for water or
babies fallen in, having slipped on
intergenerational poverty or a banana
peel, both slick and unassuming.

The Mayor of Sinkholes and the Director of
Roadside Disrepair confer, agree that this
will not do; they strategize with the department
of cracks and crevices and public works
of art and calculate the depreciation of the road.

They stand around orange cones and caution
tape, arms crossed over chests as they mumble
condolences to the pieces of O’Donnell Street
that have dropped beneath their feet, lost,
irretrievable, not deemed worth saving.

They stuff your pores with tar, a patch job,
sparkling new and glossy black like onyx,
spackle your mouth shut with glue,
check the surface flatness with a level;
they tick the boxes, follow the process.

They give a press conference and dole out
statistics, the varying depths of sinkholes,
the number they’ve filled this year alone,
how they’re coming at you from all sides, but
what can they do if the city is destined to sink?

You’ll try again next year, suck your stomach
in and pull; cars will plummet, SUVs and
pick-ups and that cyclist who wasn’t staying in
the fancy new bike lane, and the neighbors
will say I told you so, and shrug.

This time the Governor will step in,
will proclaim he can do it better, will smear
a different asphalt solution on the rebirthed
hole, will blame the lack of proper funding
when you swallow the tourists up the same.