What Would Jesus Say?

Power tools crouch in the cold,

radial and table saws alert

in muck of sawdust. Fringed

with yesterday’s snow, the scene

features two green unfolded

A-shaped Fiberglas stepladders.

Atop one, the carpenter,

laden with tools, examines

the slot where the next board goes.

Replacing this rot-damaged

oriel window’s not easy.

I wish I had the skill and drive

to correct whole worlds of decay,

rasping and crosscutting lumber

the mills have badly undersized.

Two-by-fours are an inch and a half

by three. Six-inch trim is five

and a quarter. What would Jesus,

an honest carpenter, say about

such crass and cheap imprecision?

This fellow in maroon hoodie

works without complaint, ripping

boards to exact measure, scrapping

a lot of scrap. I’d like to rummage

through that barrel of wood-waste

and take home something to use.

He probably wouldn’t object,

but I’m too shy to ask. Edged

with tough black paint, new glass

looks crisp as ice on the lake.                                                      

Behind slabs of particle board

the restaurant hums as usual—

old gossip, fake news, politics

chatty as migrating birds.

I could treat myself to coffee,

but I’d rather watch this work:

the new framing emphatic enough

to affix a single perspective

that could force us all to agree.

So’s Your Mother

Jacked up on cribbing, a house

on the lake looks so vulnerable

I’d like to topple it splashing

roof-down into the water.

What does the Indian name

of this grave lake mean? A friend

translates it, “So’s Your Mother,”

so maybe So’s Your Mother

undermined this structure and forced

the owners to rebuild it

with a poured concrete foundation.

What if we squatted up there

a couple of stories above

the workday autumn fleecing

ordinary people with taxes

and insurance and huge bills

for pumping out their septic tanks?

What if workers back on the job

found the house inhabited

by people who otherwise never

could afford to live by a lake?

Sunday’s a good day to squat.

Christian benevolence overflows,

so trespassers rarely get shot.

The mud-bottom smell comforts

with sighs and bubbles of gas

from leaf decay brown as the shoes

I wore to our wedding. Tonight,

while rain occlude the moonlight

and sizzles in the bluestone pit

where the new foundation will go,

we could listen in stilted dark,

perched like two pagan deities

far enough above the loneliness

to seduce it without thinking.

Quartet in C

The Apple Hill Chamber quartet played Hayden's Quartet in C today, September 30, 2016, at the Harrisville (New Hampshire) General Store. A pleasantly informal venue for one of America's finest string quartets.

Woman with Wings

A woman confronts a photo

of another woman with wings.

The winged woman poses before

a tower crane that poses in turn

before a distant cityscape.

Although the burnished tangerine

gown that drapes her geometry

features elegant corrugations

that would surely trip her in flight,

her wings look too feathery

to brace all that fashion aloft.

The woman observing may think

these doubtful appendages fail

to justify so much wall space

in this worldly, pricey museum.

Without creeping closer and spoiling

the tableau, I can’t determine

if those wings have grown fresh

from the subject’s sexual ethos

or whether from early childhood

she enjoyed deep alar passions

that have fruited in this display.

Maybe she hasn’t actually flown

on those flimsy accessories

but will launch herself as soon

as the photographer has finished.

Maybe the woman onlooker

would like to have wings of her own

and will go home determined

to grow them despite the fear

this ambition stirs in her partner

and friends. I want to tell her

to go ahead and will her wings

to sprout from her naked back,

maybe after a strenuous bout

of routine lovemaking. Maybe,

though, she just wants to drape

herself in tangerine and pose

before a distant smiling city

where tower cranes peck at

the landscape like blue herons

pecking meat from minor species.