Uncorked

-

Oftener now than earlier years, 

despite his swelling collection of tools and know-

how, he finds a tilted or twisted or shattered

thing he brings only to the table 

a warm body to stand by 

and look on, the way he did 

when his dad “taught” him 

to change the oil or when his wife broke 

down at last and called the plumber 

and he offered only the part 

of guy who turns off water 

then crunches little peanuts

of small talk about the Braves, 


and sometimes, even, he can’t even find 

the tool for the shut-off valve 

to keep the whole place from going 

under, like last-week’s lunch with a student 

stirred to pour out the backed-up 

mess of her parents’ divorce, or his daughter’s

nightmare about being chased 

and dad didn’t surface for the save, 


or coming home to a news story 

about the next-door town

on the other end of the world 

that lost its daughters to the uncorking

of an errant missile, that school of girls 

who died before their period 

and now run on and on and on


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