Double time pay on a sunny and not humid Sunday
the water company men overjoyed
when you spring a leak on such a day
hours and hours of backhoe grumbling
through the asphalt
whose fault
is this latest broken pipe
yet another instance
of forgotten aging infrastructure
hemorrhaging beneath the road
this untraveled world beneath our feet
rising up making its presence known
in inconvenient ways
no handwashing water or flushing toilets.

Someday we will have to Pay the Piper
but for now the checks go
to Wilkinsburg-Penn Joint Water Authority.

-- Julie Cecchini