May, 1976

May, 1976


Father works at his lathe, the crank-handles
capped with yellow plastic.
The shuttered garage door

raised up
as high as his shoulders.
Rain drizzles and beads on oily blacktop smeared with
a sheen like colored cellophane.

The dowels become
thinner. He stands them in a five-gallon bucket.
His eyes are small.

He secures each dowel in serrated jaws of an iron vise,
marking the dowels with a see-through
mechanical pencil.

He sets me down
on the stepladder, hangs the saw
from a ten-penny nail, next to the cut of plywood
shaped like a peanut shell.

Gathers pegs up off the floor.
Claps his hands,
and brushes sawdust from
dark trouser legs.

Traveler's creases like plumb lines
on the front of his pants,
Father's standing like there's a pebble in
one or both
of his wingtip brogues
and he doesn't want to move around
anymore.