TURPS

TURPS

When girls say turps for turpentine
It rubs me the wrong way.
I’m jealous they had it better
With their fathers than I did with mine.
Their fathers shared the lingo
Turps for turpentine.
Shortcuts for washing
A soaked paint brush.
Girls who learned to hammer
And built things with their dads
And climbed ladders to rooftops
And snapped the blue plumb line for dad
It rubs me the wrong way.
They did boy things with dad
And dad passed along how tos.
And forever their little girls
Spend a lifetime now saying
Turps for turpentine.

- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Turps first published in The Idiom
******************