Elizabeth Claire Rose, Village Music (hand-colored intaglio print)
Pitch pines,
sap suckers,
turkey oaks,
tit mice,
surround, surround
this man working,
leaning left
on his ladder, right
foot a toe-
tip-touch
as he goes to roof
his girl’s playhouse.
This man knows
to number, to name,
accounting a means
of first strike.
So…sweet birch,
borer bees,
sedge wren,
robins, robins,
whorish robins,
willing to roost
on his shoulder
should he let them.
He swears he feels
a hard stare
as he screws down
the starter strip
on this simple grey
gable roof,
no valleys,
no hips,
just one pair
of pitch planes.
He works right
and uphill for hours
until it’s time
to tar shingles
to buckling flange.
He hates the black
ooze glue
that grabs fast
as handcuffs,
that could hold-drown
a saber-tooth
in a tar pit.
Cicadas sing,
twining their timbres
so loud
some thoughts
can’t think
so he climbs
to the ridge top
and straddles tall.
Fists clench,
then unclench,
decision made,
decided against.
And then, she’s there.
Through the cedar
limbs he glimpses
the girl glaring,
sitting cross-
legged, leaning
over her notebook,
always note-
note-noting
and staring straight
at him, at his
eyes as if she
sees nothing,
no one.