This plank in my hand feels warm.
My fingers, cold.
I am alone in my wood shop with pieces 
of a working-class pine who did his job, 
who drank moderately and only of rain,
who had an exterior rough, a personality prickly,
whose blood ran sticky, 
who whistled while he worked,
who gifted cones of careful craft,
who dressed fancy in yellow fungus, 
	in emerald moss,
who sheltered the nesting tanager,
who stood against bullying storm,
who bent with pain, 
who donates his body,
whose spirit lingers 
as powder on my fingers
smelling sweet as sugar.
                        

Embraced by weed that clings, 
by nettle that stings, I harvest boards. 
I’d rather embrace the young bride 
who will scrape a bungalow to build a mansion 
but this old fence, precious like barn wood,
weathered yet strong, they’ll use for decor, 
perhaps the front door.

Decades ago 
in a rougher town I set these posts, 
nailed these planks for a thorny man
who leered at schoolgirls, offered massage.
A Molotov cocktail destroyed his garage.
So he hired me to wall the property
like a stockade for rusting Volvos
while the town grew less hardscrabble, 
more gentry. 

I speak no history to this innocent,
unborn when this saga began.
I am the ancient handyman.

She writes a check 
while I pluck stick-me-tights 
from shorts, from socks, from shirt.
Ick! she says. Don’t drop them in my dirt.
So I’ve brought this handful for you, my friend, 
the clutch of history from weed country 
to do what seeds do.