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