Post-Mythical

At the zenith of the day, the heat is dripping
from the glare above, some of it caught
by the olive grove shade. The road is old
and narrow, meant for quiet insular lives,
by now pockmarked with holes and craters
of continued existence past mythical times.

At an insidiously dangerous curve,
where a lake-like hole gapes from the road,
an old man with a bony frame and tattered beard
stands with a broom, slowly sweeps the scattered
gravel back into the hole; then, when his eyes
meet the passing car, his hand shoots to a salute.

A mid-day guardian of the road, an envious role.