Dirt

    by Catherine A. Rogers

After the test, I waited and thought

of the cold hug under the shoulders,

weight on the chest, blackness

packing the mouth, the nose, the eyes.

When the call came, I went out

and knelt in the dirt, watching

the worms and pillbugs work

leaf-decay to loam. I lifted

a handful, smelled green

earth and thought how hard

seed-coats crack in rain,

how root-hairs uncurl, blind

and sure of finding. Dirt clung

to my hands as I rose and let go

a shower of clods that hit

my boots with soft thuds

and broke into pieces all

I have yet to become.

© 2010 Catherine A. Rogers

* An earlier version of this poem was published by the IBPC in 2006 and 2007.

Catherine A. Rogers is a widely unpublished poet who lives and teaches English in Savannah, Georgia.  Some of her work has appeared in Kalliope: A Journal of Women's Literature and Art and online in Autumn Sky Poetry.  An earlier version of her poem "Dirt" was selected for First Place in the August 2006 IBPC contest and was then selected as the IBPC Poem of the Year May 2006 - April 2007 by Mark Doty.