Yard Work

Dad has spent this entire week digging a pond. 
When I offer help he says, Only 
got one shovel. I drive out to the garden center 
and buy him three black fish. He says 
they will need a pump to circulate the water 
and lets me hold the motor steady 
while he tightens screws on a clear tube. 

He listens as I chatter about graduation, 
worry about what I will do next. He says, 
All I can remember about my senior year 
is watching some dumb kid chase a puppy, 
out there on the main green. Then I graduated. 
After that, drafted. Here his remembered life ends. 
When it begins again he is calling 
me to run to third base. 

Last summer, I read about young men crawling 
through the jungle while Dad ripped 
up the patio and laid down sod. I read 
that men who stepped on landmines would ascend 
like feathers as if the sunlight in the trees 
gathered them up. I don’t know if this is true
or just something the author thought beautiful. 

I don’t know if the puppy is true or the laughing kid 
or the Ohio sycamores drenched in summer light. 
Dad shows me how to snake the tube 
through the filter, then he runs the cord 
to the garage as I lower the pump into the pond. 
He shouts something at me. The water rushes out. 
Well, he says, as the fish swim to the surface 
popping their mouths, there you go