Atlas, pass the ketchup

Picnic Table

The locust posts

he found peeled clean

lopped in six foot logs

on the rundown farm

behind blowsy fence rows

where his mother was born

trespass a tangy note

to cut the sweet cloy of larceny

sweeter still to feature

Papa Wear railing red

in the sweet by and by

elastic drawl reduced to ash

Scots Irish burr

coaxed back to life

tender green oaths

up in shoots through the burn.

Cedar plank branded

with bore holes

four inch lag bolts

to bite and hold

spar varnish lavished

on knot and grain

ship in a bottle

for a man

with oars for hands

heart a deep draft keel.

Life ain’t no picnic

so my father

built a table

to last an eternity.

Once

I watched him

tip the table top

onto his back

grip the edges

below the center of gravity

rise in a stoop

like a mythical beast

spiked with locust posts

and waltz the table

down the block

to a neighbors backyard

where picnickers covered

his metaphor

with a red checked table cloth

and pointed him toward the cooler.