Cellar Job
All day I work with a crew of carpenters
When the crew goes home and I hang around
The Worse Thing About a Young Son
Your orderly
Toolbox will never
Be the same
One of the Best Things About a Young Son
That he cares
That you have a toolbox
In the first place
Goliath
The biggest —
and I mean
biggest, burliest
worker on the crew
shirtless, hairy
shouldered, many
rippled gut sun
bronzed in cut-
offs with a
perfectly shaped
goat’s beard when
lifting the heaviest
metal salvage in the
heap of scrap gets
struck by two
yellowjackets is
stopped on the spot
Teddy
Teddy was this mostly all wild
Farm dog that used to be tied
Right outside the barn door and
All day Teddy would lay there.
You could look at him a million
Times and never quite get right
What breed of dog Teddy was.
Part this ‘n’ that, Native would say.
Huge head, long hair, big body and
Bear like dog. Just lay there.
Sometimes would eat on a deer skull,
Pig skull, something slaughtered skull.
Never seemed bothered when I pet him.
Eyes that seemed to have seen everything.
It was at night Native would unchain Teddy
And all through the woods he would roam.
Mowing
As it
Rains
How fully
The grass
for Ian Hamilton Finlay
Bob Arnold
Yokel
Longhouse
2011
