LUMBER

Honey sweet smell, pungent and green
(If you know what green smells like.)
Scent lingers, full of warm, cozy memories.
Sawdust covered floor, slippery, dangerous.
Shop floor of shaved wood curls,
Sharp slivers and needlepoint splinters.
Underfoot, remnants of long ago projects:
Bent nails cast off in yellow pine,
Blocks of trimmed wood and clipped dowels,
Chiseled chunks that made way
for a shiny brass door hinge.
Two by four beams sweat sap
Despite the trip through the kiln
And the long ride
From the mill up north
To this dusty old lumber yard
Where weathered carpenters
In torn overalls pick and choose
From the straight and true beams.

SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.