Totem


Grandfather lost his index finger 
pounding out a carpenter’s wage 
across Wyoming, Utah, Montana,
hammering, planing, sanding
shelves of ash to shine
like fields of wheat, making mahogany 
slide beneath his thumb like a worn penny.
He hefted tools from town to town, 
waiting for the boom to bust before 
seeing a doctor about the sliver 
of pine that defied his digging
with the pocket knife
he’d carried since he was twelve.
He was sullen when I knew him,
spent his days haunting entryways
to factories, woodshops, train yards, 
mumbling, pointing with his stub,
surveying other men’s work,
compulsively consulting a gold watch 
he’d bought with his first month’s pay.

Sometimes I take that watch from its glass case,
compress the catch to feel the precision 
with which its cover springs open 
between forefinger and thumb, 
only to find grandfather’s jealous eye
staring out at me.

My father’s hands caned chairs
in even shuttle motions, 
tapping tight the fibers into solid mats.
At night at the kitchen table
he chiseled blocks of avocado
into human figures.
On June Lake in the Sierra
he baited hooks, untangled reels,
fingers numbed by mountain cold,
slid a knife precisely down the bellies 
of trout from anus to throat, followed 
with his thumb, scooping out organs and gore.
Those hands planted trees, mixed concrete, 
set cinder blocks in place, tamped them level,
grooved the space between
to build the wall around our yard.

Beyond that wall, he seldom let me see
the hands at work for forty years
drawing gears, guidance systems,
missiles, rockets, bombs, dark compromise
for our suburban California home.

I have a gymnast’s hands, shaped
by handstands, handsprings, ropes, and bars
that raised my veins like blue highways.
I took my turn at carving wood,
then twisted wire into little sculptures.  
But once I tore the tendons
on the index finger of my right hand,
saw it dangle limp and useless,
a dead trout, and felt grandfather’s eye
surveying me from toe to crown.  
And once a woman from rural Carolina 
began to read the lines that mapped my calloused palms, 
stopped abruptly, left the room distressed.  
Now I carve totems out of words 
and listen for a gold watch ticking in its tomb.





The Watch

​
My grandfather hadn’t much to give,
didn’t know how to give it:
box of aging tools with drawers 
of blades and bits and chisels,
carpenter’s clamps with sliding brackets 
that could have squeezed the Devil out of witches;
stub of a missing finger, false teeth 
that floated on a thin pool of brown 
tobacco juice, German name of Karl 
discarded during the War;
heart clenched like a walnut shell 
around a marriage compressed 
to bickering and skirmishes.
Not much for a kid like me;
worst of all, a knee 
that demanded sitting on,
while his damaged grasp 
clamped like a rusted vise 
onto my skinny arm.

I made the best of every visit, 
gave a smile for a penny, 
laugh for a nickel, 
almost anything to wriggle free
from his four fingered claw,
breath of cheap cigars,
old man smell of his knitted vest.
But he’d cling to me, 
occasional cackle erupting
through his gums because 
my middle name was Charles,
and someone had finally 
named someone after him.
Eventually, a long chain
would snake out of a hidden pocket.
A gold watch dangled before my eyes.
He’d pop it open, grunt, release me 
with a sigh, and off I’d go.

When he had his heart attack,
he left me the watch,
an Elgin, fitting solid in my palm,
each side elegantly engraved 
with lines that fanned out
from tiny ovals near the hinge,
one filled with little petals,
the other left bare, awaiting 
initials or a name never entered,
an heirloom, my father told me,
a working man’s first investment, 
after his tools, a piece of crafted gold
to last a lifetime, or several.

A jeweler soon destroyed that claim.
Gold filled, not eighteen carats,
obvious from the guarantee,
Good for twenty years,
stamped inside the cover.
Still, it’s held up well, considering.
Runs slow, though, no fixing that, 
timing holes worn out.

Even with its gears recalibrated,
missing second hand
and broken cover spring replaced, 
it’s a curious contraption 
full of gaps and slippages,
little silver solar systems
spinning carelessly,
planets inside of planets
running retrograde,
missing deadlines, extending visits,
playing havoc with schedules.
But at my age I like the way it shuts 
like Grandfather’s hand on my wrist,
devil of a grip, lasting a lifetime.


-both poems originally published in Shiva Dancing