He built it with used two by fours
scrap metal for runners.
He always saved spare parts

and cast off material.
We might use that someday
he would say and, sure enough,

one day when ice and snow came,
the Bailey Hill beckoned.
I stood beside him

in the cold basement as he framed
a sled from a design
tucked away in his memory.

I helped by holding the wood
in place as he nailed it tight,
then tacked on the runners.

We rode that sled every day
the cold lasted, screaming with delight
flying downhill in homemade ecstasy.

But today I remember the making
of the sled. It is in building
that his genius lay, and how I marvel

at his ability to make happiness
out of things left over, used
and otherwise abandoned.

From Spare Parts (Mongrel Empire Press, 2010).
Used here with the author's permission.