Dirt

The new owners wanted to update the landscaping. They took out the overgrown bush, laid new mulch, bought bags of stone to line the garden beds. The last step was to replace the walkway from the street to the building. Landscapers dug up dirt and left piles on the sidewalk. 

The new walkway covered the smoothed out dirt, finishing the project. But the dirt piles sat, awaiting pickup. One week, two, a month. The owners bought caution tape and looped it around the piles, tying it to trees and hand rails.

No. 167

Replacement

An apartment building in the neighborhood hired plumbers to redo the pipes. They came through and bisected the front lawn, then bisected the sections. From these narrow trenches they dug out the old, rusting pipes. As they pulled them out, the metal fractured under their touch. Metal flakes fell into the grass and became lost. The workers lined the old pipes along the side of the road. At the end of the day, job half-finished, they stuck metal spikes along the perimeter, then wrapped caution tape around each spike. The workers cut plastic water bottles in half and placed them like severed heads. As my dog walked past the upturned yard, he pleaded with his eyes to run in the dirt and dig the holes deeper.

No. 142