by Michael Bettencourt

Created on: June 14, 2008   Last Updated: January 31, 2012

Chisels

Summer: the sizzling hiss of boiled air
like a handsaw in new-kilned pine.
The heat siphons off my pen;
my hand leaves liquid negatives on the page.
I sweat in a sweat of waiting.

Someone somewhere starts a sabre saw;
I can hear the droning whinny of the kerf,
almost smell the singed pitch of the knots,
feel the soft waste of the sawdust braid
the thick hair on my forearms.

My father was a carpenter - part-time,
in his workshop, after work, always building.
I can remember the heavy stud of tools
on the walls, drawers of nails,
table saw, drill press, router.

And the chisels, carbonized steel in rosewood -
sets of them hung above the workbench,
from wide-nibbed to fine line, the hafts
shadowed with sweat, the metal
shiny from the lick of wood.

I can still hear the wooden mallet
on the handle of the one-inch bevel
as it burrowed like ice under stone to lift
long splines that cracked and hinged,
leaving rough cameo fringed with splinters.

Then the sharp tongue of the small chisel drawing up
thin curls of wood, like breath from winter mouths,
as he moved with delicate thick-tendoned force
across grains, raising roses from beds of maple,
the family name from apple.

What precision in that man, hidden in his garage,
the whispering of sandpaper, the tang of stain -
now his chisel is my pen as it lifts
thin curls of syllable; it digs into the line's grain,
pries, sends a phrase cracking, smooths sweat to sense.

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