Autumn Dreams

The big yellow backhoe's teeth
chomped
a clump of concrete
that used to be her front stoop
as the driver cocked an ear.
"Save it," she shouted
into the November gale.
The man in the battered Carhart jacket
shook his head,
but did not drop her treasure
Whap!!
onto the dump truck
with the footings of the old house
and the pieces of its cement floor
tossed into the truck
like tiles in a Scrabble box.

She pointed.
The backhoe swung southward,
work-gloved hands pulling the levers
and settling her prize
onto the clay soil
like an egg into a carton.

She cringed.
"No...not there...
There!
And turn it upside down, could you?"

The driver smiled,
charging by the minute, after all.
He leveled
the flat surface of her prize,
angled it just so.
Clank. Clank. Rrrrr.
She lusted after her own backhoe.

Autumn dreams conceived perfection
from this squared concrete confection.
Viewing platform or urn stand?
rock feature or fountain grand?
Spring brings the chance to lust anew--
if she only had a backhoe, her dreams would come true.