Dave Bonta's "Hole" is a short, broken-up poem that reads like a sudden swerve. The speaker describes "a hard turn in the garden of love," and instead of flowers or comfort, that turn leaves a hole, something you can only look into. Love, which we expect to be soft and growing, becomes a place of damage and absence.
The last lines push the feeling further. The speaker imagines "my house" being "pulled down," and the dirt seems to belong to that same moment, as if the loss of a home and the digging of a hole are one event. The final phrase, "the night I see," is left hanging, so we can't tell what is seen. That gap feels deliberate. The poem suggests a kind of shock or clarity that arrives with loss, though it never spells it out.
The mood is stark, uneasy, and quiet. The speaker doesn't explain or complain. They simply stare into the hole, and the poem lets us stare with them.