whelve

 

i’m just your average handyman…

 

‘whelve’ 

my father kept many tools i never knew how to use. little boy hands still feel little boy in adult bones. remarkably he transferred his sins into the soil of all my pores but to this day i can’t fix a thing. when he moved on i took his toolbox heavy as all the burdens he never spoke a word of and just as cool. in a side room off from my basement he waits to be mended but i’ve closed him to the dark. i can smell his curses mushrooming like smoke from diesel stacks and his words linger longer than summer did when i was six. loose screws require the perfect twist but all falls apart when stripped. he’d call me useless in those bursts of deflection and dutifully my eyes fell to the dirt under my nails. i’m sorely scrubbed now and the irony is i no longer feel under my fingertips. the apple falls no farther from the tree nor does a bent angle lean from its foundation. i pound with fury all that no longer fits foregoing his wrenches. round holes don’t accept five knuckles but i’ve the flayed skin to prove that’s not fucking true at all.

listen to this poem

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

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