Locals

Someone must have spread the word:
This yard sale is men-only.
Never such a sight before:
In shorts and baseball caps they wander
by golf clubs, beer tap handles, drills,
and a band saw with its case ajar
to show the blade’s true quality.
These men are the town’s deep stratum,
seam of coal;
in vans and king cab pickups they patrol,
Sundays in the doughnut shop converse,
and greet close-cropped at the barber's.
Rooted, they uproot the trees.
In home-improvement stores they ask no questions;
stained, blunt-fingered hands heft lumber.
With box nails, PVC, and roadway tar,
the places that we live are,
well and poorly,
made by such as these.

August 18 2019