Canoe

This is how Alan rebuilt

the Thompson Brothers canoe:

He loosened the gunnels,

pulled the tacks

out, unscrewed the keel,

and the old canvas fell away.

He fixed a couple of broken

ribs, set the frame inside

a canvas hammock

pulled with block and tackle.

Inside that, he set

concrete blocks for weight,

and wiggled the frame

for a week until the canvas

loved its shape. He wrapped

and tacked the ends, coated

the canvas with sealer

hard enough to sand.

Then he screwed the gunnels

on, then the brass

at bow and stern, then

to keel. This is how much

love there is in the fingers,

in the shapes given to the eye

when the eye hardly knows

what it sees. The fingers

draw back the shape

of sliding through

the water, of evening

and morning, of coming

along the cusp

of light and dark

with no sound, moving

as if moving were a wish

pulling itself.

The paddle goes down

like muscle, a faint slap.

The shape is the channel,

the ribbed basket,

the lightness of breaking

through, the suspension

between sky and floor,

a sigh, a stretch

of canvas like a drawn

bow, lean as fingers.