The Upheaval

I caught the toe of my boot on the lip

of a sidewalk slab that shouldn't be there.

It’s tilted up at a forty-degree angle,

a jagged grey tooth in the middle of the path.

Underneath the concrete, a thick knot

of grey bark is doing the slow work

of moving the world out of its way.

It’s silent and it’s blind,

but it has nowhere else to go.

I look at the crack and the dirt

spilling out from the dark space below.

Even the trees are getting tired

of staying where they were planted.