~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Carolyn Adams

Hands

In the dooryard

of a wood frame house

a man stands in a shaft of light.

His back is bent

to a carpenter’s task.

He hums,

bending staves of birch,

fitting them to a cradle’s pine body.

He knows the child

who’ll rest there,

her head

turned in sleep.

He listens for the feather breath,

miraculous, knowing

he’ll never remember it.

Carving handholds,

he sands them smooth

until they’re silken,

pictures his daughter’s hands

sliding into those holds,

holds them himself.

This is the best he can do,

putting himself to this work.

He reaches for sandpaper or a hammer,

maybe a T-square,

making the finish clean,

the nail heads flush,

the corners, the angles, true.

Carolyn Adams's poetry and art have appeared in Steam Ticket, Cimarron Review, Evening Street Review, Dissident Voice, and Blueline Magazine, among others. She is the editor and publisher at Red Shoe Press. Having authored four chapbooks, her full-length volume is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. She has been nominated multiple times for both Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize.