Every mitre only as clean as the chop saw
it’s cut on. Any gouge, puncture, or flaw
in baseboard or casing is quickly forgiven
by almighty Spackle; your putty knife turns uneven
joints into smoothline, turns nickle-sized hammer dents
back into the wood’s true profile —
at the owner’s expense.
Thin wainscotting strips are worthless poker hands
you keep throwing back to watch land
at attention, soldier-straight, from the bathroom door
right down the corridor’s
parade route. That easy. That fast. And if the framing’s well built —
no vicious lean, tilt,
or bad wow — the aesthetics should be clear, even simple,
like topping a self-portrait in oils with an eye-pleasing dimple
that doesn’t exist in real life.
How else to render a bland, formless grief
into something at least sellable? The mere appearance of beauty’s
not beauty, but it’s reliable.
Just finish. Get paid.
At night, alone, you’ll redeem or undo what your hands have made.