Whenever my father spotted a nail, bent or twisted
by errant hammer, discarded as useless because it was
no longer true, he always picked up the reject to carry
 
along with him to where he kept an old tobacco can,
where the off-kilter joined the collection of cripples
needing his attention. It was a task for another day.
 
I was too young to understand his reason for doing this,
nor to fathom what satisfaction he received for his
slow and deliberate care, returning each nail to true.
 
This was when my father’s livelihood was driving
his car down gravel or dirt roads selling Fuller brushes,
then Electrolux vacuums, Nutty Club confectioneries.
 
He eked a meager wage, but his heart was never in it.
His honesty and regard for others road-blocked sales
targets and he could never pressure anyone to buy.

Rainy weekends, I would find him in the workshop,
happy with his hammer and his tobacco can, working
against time to set things right, the only way left to him.


This poem appeared previously in The Duke City Fix,
an online newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Used here with permission.