The Tinkerer Nearly Punches Through

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The Tinkerer Nearly Punches Through


He can’t manufacture it, 

but sometimes when the mower’s 


up on blocks and the bearings hammer out 

whole, and black cherry pipe smoke 


slips into brake grease like sweat-slicked

lovers, and bees drone drowsy


round the uncut clover praying 

the part doesn’t fit, and not a monarch


but one of those little black ones 

touches down on the ratchet set  


as the neighbor looses rounds 

in the woods behind the house, 


he can't mix words to cement it

but senses there's a knowing under-


girding what he knows, a hand

holding the hand holding


the wrench, or a stillness beneath

the stillness like the baseline hum


of box-fan clicking suddenly off.



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