Dad

When I was small and you seemed grown up but weren’t really
you sometimes let me tinker
in your shop, the old slanting chicken coop

under the walnut trees that dropped
their rotting autumn fruits on the tin roof like grenades.
I kept my tools, the ones you gave just to me,

near the wood stove with its shovels full of sawdust behind.
It was my favorite place to work.
The chill of your fear didn’t penetrate there.

While you made masterpieces
of cherry and oak,
swearing incessantly at their imperfections,

I fiddled around with your left-overs,
screwing together picture frames and once a miniature
hope chest.  Its rounded top of thin hardwood sticks

virtuous to my eye.  I sanded it smooth,
gave it an antique looking lock with a key
and a coat of clear finish.  I thought then

that what I hoped for would come in the form of a
boy to fill my chest. 
And he did come and he did fill me

for a time.   We both wore white – not because
we were virgins, but because
we were young.  And now you are both gone

of your own selves, you and my boy,
by your own hands that have been so clever
yet incapable of reaching divinity,

Oh, how the scent of fresh sawdust blinds me still.