a 9-pound firewood-splitting maul; for P.R.
Blunt-headed and stubborn
as a non believer,
wedged into oak beside
the snow-capped
trash pile on a cold day
with a sky brushed
back by clouds, the sun
splintering the jagged
crack of the horizon.
Plain dumb, that’s one
way the devil plays you,
and here he comes,
your old man ambling
from cabin to shed,
then into the woods
thick with hemlock
branches he’ll split
with it, then nothing
but old hands that drag
the tracks deeply back
to where he pulls the tool
out of the stump
and pumps his old
arms up and down,
smiting oak like a sin
he’s long forgotten.
