Behold this boy, my brother, raised
to hang above the kitchen floor.
Against his ears, our father pressed his palms
to lift the child, face-to-face, and roar.
Behold the boy today.
His height, his build, his hands,
a near copy of our father’s.
Each day, the labor not to be that man.
In his shop, the buzz of a router.
Beneath it, he mutters to himself, hums.
In the shadows, a boy’s head hinged midair,
his legs dangling like twin pendulums.
From hardwood, he builds a table.
The dovetail joints, cut and glued,
legs married to a tabletop this way,
no nails, no cleats, no screws.
He lets the walnut speak, leaves
the table’s edges live. And in the grain,
dark notches aligned like vertebrae
along the table’s burnished plane.