How to Use a Chisel

 

How to Use a Chisel

Not like that. Flip it over.
Keep the bevel edge down. Flat side up.
Don’t hammer.
Light taps, wooden mallet.
Better, just push with the heel of your hand
as the old masters tell you,
those of clear hearts
who work wood all their lives,
their flesh an anthology of oops —
tales of skin flaps, bloody dovetail joints.

The fingertip fell as a stub
he retrieved from the sawdust floor.
With both hands occupied
pressing tip to knuckle as tenon to mortise
bound in a shop rag dripping red, he drove
the old truck with no hand on the wheel
steering with belly, with elbows,
the whole trip in second gear, couldn’t shift.
It was night. Rain.
Then the prettiest little nurse
with that ugly-ass surgeon saying
You did it wrong, should’ve put the stub
in a plastic bag with ice
but now you’d hardly discern — see?
Crease above the knuckle, it ain’t natural.

Keep a sharp edge.
It’s simple, the motion.
And yet, no matter. One moment
out of millions, something bizarre:
a lizard drops onto your head.
Oops.
Plastic bag. Ice.
Okay? Now, son. Here.
You can have this old man’s chisel.

…..

First published in The Literary Nest—thank you editor Pratibha Kelapure
Photo by Alexei in Pixabay

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Toast

 

Toast

On magnificent wings
a great blue heron in the golden dawn
glides to a stop
where power lines sag on steel poles
to a stop
on a silver thread of shine
to a stop
bringing velocity sideways swinging the line
to a stop
contacting the next wire
to a stop
POP
and heron is no more.

Power out for two hours.
Toast untoasted. Eggs unfried. Coffee unbrewed.
It is our own fault, this inconvenience,
don’t blame the bird. Your fault. Mine.
Our dollars bought this design.
Singed feathers float over the marsh,
a reminder, a memorial,
if we care to see.

…..

First published in Misfit. Thank you editor Alan Catlin.
Photo by Greg Johnston.

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Thin Ice

 

Thin Ice

My daughter Lily asks why
I always buy plain chapstick
when she specifically asks for cherry—
Cherry, Dad!
I’m silent.

Carol’s birthday, her 13th,
ice skating party on the C&O Canal.
I’m 12.
Carol has scars from a cleft lip.
Speech a little weird.
Her smile rare, one-sided, a sideways heart.
Laughter unknown.

Carol races me.
She’s faster but stops with a shoosh.
I pass to the sound of crackling
like frozen bolts of lightning and I’m in water
like electric shock. My legs go through,
my torso flat on a breaking slab. Flailing
for a grip I reach Carol’s hand.

Fingers touch, lock.
I clamber out saying “I’m okay
I’m not even cold” because I’m not yet
but my dad says “Take off your skates
and all that wet stuff. Undies, too.”
I strip, Carol watching.
I’ve just grown hair.

By now I’m shivery, jumping up and down.
From the trunk of the Chevy
my dad finds a raggedy towel I can wrap.
We all wish Carol a happy birthday.
Her mom and dad kiss her cheeks,
then my mom and dad kiss her forehead,
so (towel like a skirt) missing signs
not knowing rules, I kiss the shiny red
heart-mouth.

Her eyes fly open.
Mine never close.
Sticky chapstick.
Her open hand presses the front of my skirt.
Firm hand. My entire body snaps to attention.
Her lips warm. Blood rushes. A new era—
with scent of cherry.
“Happy birthday,” I say.
“Yeah,” Carol says.

Years later I realize
she was trying to push me away.
Be careful with boys is what I should say
but “Sorry,” is what I tell my daughter.
“Cherry,” she says. “Next time, try to remember.”

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen.

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Special

 

Special
 
You can’t help but
watch them quarrel
about their ‘relationship’
as she calls it
while your coffee steams.
She finally says
“Can you tell me I’m special in any way?”
and he says
“I’ll think about it”
and you and everybody
at all the tables are silently urging
—Leave now, sweetie—
but she keeps badgering
“Tell me one way I’m special”
and he says
“I’m still thinking”
and she says
“Tell me!”
while his cheeks are slick with tears
“Tell me!”
until she rises from her chair
leans across the tiny table
kissing
solemn as a saint
deep as a canyon
slow as an era
and you have to look away.
Your coffee, everybody’s coffee
needs warming.

…..

First published in Red Eft Review. Thank you editor Corey Cook.
Note: I wrote this poem not because I understand it but because I don’t. I was simply a witness. Now the poem is witness, too. And you.

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Steak, Well Done

 

Steak, Well Done

When Uncle Merrel buys steak
he peers it in the eye, selects it
on the hoof, walks it by rope
to an Amish butcher. A day later
Merrel loads 500 pounds of meat
to his 2-wheel trailer, pulls it
with a smoke-popping tractor
to a freezer in town.

A few cuts Merrel brings home
and cooks special for us,
his west coast nephew and family
who followed the Oregon Trail backwards
for dinner which is mid-afternoon
on farm country time in Missouri.
Back home we don’t eat meat
but we don’t mention.

Uncle Merrel is a patched old machine
pushed too hard for too long,
threads of flesh bound in scraps of denim.
Sweats red oil. Shakes when idle,
then at top speed he groans and grunts.

Steak, says Merrel,
oughtn’t be bloody inside,
you want it cooked but if you order
well done in a restaurant they get mad at you
and flame it too fast so it’s burned outside
but still bloody in the middle.

We appreciate we didn’t have to evaluate
this steak in the eye. Uncle Merrel
cooks with time, with sizzling fat.
Well done, still juicy but not bloody.
The farm way. And golly it’s good.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Haugen.
Photo by Hedy81 on Pixabay

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Phlebotomy

 

 

 

Phlebotomy

She thanks me for my “great veins”
like tree roots in shallow soil
making her job easy. I thank her
for surefire aim, a poke almost painless.
Together we watch purple seawater
spurt-spurt into vials with labels slapped,
my birthdate verified, initialed,
my true identity in liquid and digit.

A sailor’s cats-paw of tiny waves
surround my veins, gusts of age
rippling the skin. I used to be smooth,
look decent in a mirror. I’d open jars.
I built entire houses board by board,
nail by nail.

Do purple vials carry memory?
No, child that’s your job. Dig no grave,
carve no tombstone. I’ll be ash
scattered on mountainside. Breeze will blow.
And then, child, will you please—
 
Build a small sailboat with the skills I taught.
Steer over seawater.
I’ll come to you in cats-paw.
Feel the warm breath of my love.

…..

First published in Moss Piglet. Thank you editor John Bloner.
The photo is of my left arm. 

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She awakes feeling light-headed

 She awakes feeling light-headed

as if her brain is the vacuum
inside a blaring light bulb,
stands and promptly falls face-forward,
bonks her head on a potted ficus,
breaks the pot
spilling water from the tray beneath
and she sprawls in potty muck
smelling fertile and dark

but then she can walk
so he hauls her to Stanford Emergency
where they bring electrodes for her chest.
She says to the tech
Just a warning, no bra
so you won’t be surprised
because sometimes they are
and knowing these are not
the breasts men envy.

A single doctor
then a team of 3 doctors a couple nurses
a blood draw a CT scan
concluding not stroke but an inner ear thing
and an unspoken sense of
What do you expect —
You’re old people.

Return home, a day gone,
eat crab cakes for dinner—
wine for her, a beer for him
then on the flat screen
they watch a screwball comedy
as rain pounds the window
and they go to bed
above a fertile dark scent from the floor.

Lying down makes her feel
light-headed again without brain mass.
Mortal she says
but safe on flannel sheets
as they chat in the night holding hands
and surprised
she at her need her desire
he at his workmanlike response
play a familiar game
slowly the old-people way
slightly dizzy but she smiles
stretches her flawed but precious body
until they sleep curled like kittens
trusting or at least hoping
tomorrow to wake.

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review. Thank you editor Roderick Bates

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