Thursday, August 15, 2013

Give me varnished knotty pine



Men Who Finished Our Basements

Men who finished our basements paced in circles
running Romex in their heads, cold torches of beer chest high
illuminating the dimmest corners of their imaginations.

Elbows planted on enameled bars of churning Lady Kenmore’s
they plotted utter encapsulation of laundry rooms, apportioned generous
slices to well-appointed workshops peppered with outlets, sanctums

for salty words to spice the buzz of florescent lights on chains, cornering
darkness under fuel oil tanks, wreathing low hanging duct work in delicate
whorls of smoke, seeping into the stutter of a thousand holes

closing ranks around swollen silhouettes of screwdrivers and channel lock
pliers, the xylophone vibe of box end wrenches.  A place for everything
and everything in its place; Playboys tucked away behind fat three ring

binders, common graves of Hi-Fi schematics and Martin house specs,
blueprints for A-frames awaiting three acre plots east of Grayling, no more
likely to see daylight as fragrant mimeo’d diagrams for trebuchets.  

Men who finished our basements ran fingers down the fluting
of knotty pine panels, snapped chalked lines, shimmed furring
stripped down to sweaty tanks on sticky August Saturdays, sawdust

lodged in hairy swale, squinted through skeins of smoke from dangling
Winston’s, shrieking circular saws commanding attention, haranguing
the wincing wives of the men who finished our basements and elbowed

up to laminate wet bars to toast themselves in Miller Beer mirrors
tinkering the winters away, reluctant vices relinquishing their grip
on long forgotten stock with a nudge of the screw the morning you

arrive to consign it all to box or bag.  The men who finished our basements
all traces of them erased by young new owners eager for update, yearning
for dimmable recessed lighting, sturdy constructions to last the ages. 

















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