Lineman

He worked for the electric
company right out of high school,
chewed Red Man and Mail
Pouch, spit the juice through
parted teeth onto the ground in
back of the old trailer.

his wavy black hair got all the girls, they
didn’t care that his teeth were yellowed
from the tobacco, because country boys
had more to offer than just kissin’.

that day he went to work like any other,
lunchbox full of mom’s homemade cooking
and a slice of pie for desert. that day he
idn’t come home, that day he grabbed a
hot wire and grounded himself

to the metal ladder. smoke already rolling
from every part of his body. his partner
knocked the ladder out from under him, but
he couldn’t be revived, his lunch getting
colder in the cool of morning,

his shoes, blown off his black feet, lie
smoldering on the singed ground, ashen
and empty.

Kevin LeMaster’s poems have been found at SheilaNaGig online, Gyroscope Review, Hive Avenue Literary Journal, Main Street Rag, Barely South Review, Mantis, Amistad and others.

Kevin has work forthcoming in Chiron Review, Noctua Review, Landlocked, Rubbertop Review, Here; A Journal Of Poetry and Rockvale Writer’s Group. His second chapbook In The Throes Of Beauty (Finishing Line Press) is forthcoming.

Kevin is the author of the chapbook Mercy (Arroyo Seco Press, 2023) and has been nominated for a Pushcart thrice and once for a Best of Net.