Hardware

Hardware

What the customer knows is that he’s looking

for something loosely shaped like a U

that nailed up could help bracket the sagging 

from the bottom. Not quite like that 

but sort of like the thing you see people use

to cinch together shelving, like the kind

in your college dorm, or maybe wire

would work fine in a pinch, but it’s more 

a question of fitting between—what are those

pieces called that run sort of like this 

behind the drywall?—those things. What

the owner knows after years of circling

aisles to pluck the nail with a head just right

for the hammer to hit, is that if there were 

a word that clomped through the door

with the confidence to say just what it is

we're looking for, we’d be sure

to get home only to find it not quite the fit 

for the head-scratching angles of this,

our inimitably particular project.