Another Tool in the Shed

"You're tryin' to kill the ball" he yelps;

a child, I tuck my head not knowing the difference

between a swing and some forethought terminology.

He walks along the edge of the wood searching

for white dimpled balls that the minister's of this game

had lost but never found as I stumble sideways,

left and right again winding a zealous path to victory.

That day ended like many before it and I came home,

to his home, where I would take his favorite four wood out

to the pasture and try to forge my baseball swing

into something more to his liking.

Eventually the head from that club busted loose;

it probably went further than the ball did,

but he uses it as his walking cane now so I guess he never minded.

Maybe he just wanted to show me

that I was there with him all those lonely nights where Grandma

would be sleeping in my bed instead of his.

It's just another tool in the shed now, I tell myself.

Like the snow blower or rototiller--why you need one

when you have a tractor the size of a truck

and blades once wielded by horses was beyond me.

He takes his bottom teeth out as I sit on his lap,

watching half naked men wrestle around in a roped ring.

"When will I be able to do that", I giggle.

Older now, I mow his lawn and weed the garden--

he's got a zipper scar down the center of his chest

and sits in that same chair nodding in and out of sleep mostly.

My room has changed--no more childish games,

instead there are books to study and dreams that seem within reach.

During the summer we'd split wood in the side yard

for the coming snowfall--"Take a break,"

he'd say and hand me a glass of water.

Wood splitter - another tool in the shed, like the hand axe

and wedge that came before it. There's always something

that precedes something, always a lapse in time from the here

and now. I understand I may never be able to take my teeth out

like he did that day; but I also understand just like

that snow blower or hand axe and wedge, I had become

just another tool in the shed.