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
Poetry Northwest, Spring/Summer 2011
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
Poetry Northwest, Spring/Summer 2011
