— for J. H.
It’s what I accomplished this week,
then, as if chased, cut a blue streak
to a seat at the bar, where
my kind are par
for the course, and these pints are blinders
strapped snug to the nodding,
hang-lipped head
of a horse.
Wet lime-stink of backfill — excavation —
boulders drilled, split with a sledge, and hefted
like ballast up over the edge.
A trench,
a foundation. Posts and beams, planed
smooth, plumbed, and bolted to — fixed
like monoliths on some island
knoll — then the screams
of a SkilSaw; a quiltwork of tongue-and-
groove sheathing, seams staggered, then
glued. Lengths of bevelled
decking laid crosswise
and screwed. It’s what I accomplished. For wages.
Over a gridlock of hedges a house sticks
out its tongue in derision at a house
backing onto its lot whose
tongue is thrust out —
a dark Escher-vision of squarings, levellings.
A plot of middle ground, our own paddock with
centre-post to circle around. We
work and drink and
sweat through unbridled dreams of the mean.