If time isn’t infinite,
why do memories
linger?

Fifth-grade science
with greased black hair,
and this whiny voice
like pipe hitting gravel,
tectonic shifting
to leave
a gaping core
longing
for earth.

The shovel
won’t go away.
It works
to bury you alive.

You can’t dig
beyond the dirt
beneath your fingernails.

(originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal, Summer 2017)