Poetry

Poetry by Hunter Hodkinson and art by Samantha Edmonds

“Lake Okeechobee” by Samantha Edmonds

Hunter Hodkinson

DIGGING A HOLE

I never dug a hole 
to China. 

As a child the whole idea 
seemed impossible.

How could a boy
of eight or nine 
use his grandma’s
gardening shovel 
to dig a hole 
big enough for
us both?

I love it here
she’d say,
this is my home. 

Well,
if she wasn’t going
I sure as hell wasn’t. 

I couldn’t even say 
Hello!
in Chinese,
let alone 
Chicken nugget 
Happy Meal please!

My exposure 
to Asian culture 
was limited to 
The Karate Kid 
remake with Jaden Smith,
and the one time Dad
forced me to watch 
Big Trouble In Little China
with him. 

Escape was out 
of the question.

Dig a hole somewhere else,
Grandma said. 

Great idea! 
Digging straight down 
seemed most logical. 
I grabbed the 
mildew speckled globe 
from the basement and put 
my fingers on opposite sides. 

Ohio
/
Australia

That's the place 
with kangaroos!
They speak English
there, I think. 

I snatched the green-handled
shovel from grandma’s
dirt-dappled fingers
and started an excavation site
behind the garage.

I worked tirelessly 
beneath the sweltering 
summer day
until the streetlights 
came on. 

I wiped the sweat 
from my forehead 
and was appalled to find
the hole was barely big enough 
to fit both feet inside!

Escape really was out of the question.

The hole slowly vanished
filling with orange clay water,
packed solid with lawnmower shrapnel
and the evening out of earth. 

Now only a slight divot remains
beneath the fire pit Mom installed. 

Hundreds of beer bottle caps 
and thousands of cigarettes have been 
stamped out around the crater,
like little volcanic eruptions 
burying my brief
childish dream
beneath tobacco embers.