The dogwood I planted
last year has sprouted darts,
rocks piled on the side,
boastful testaments,
to pick and shovel,
digging bar,
Yes I did it
labor.
Just across from the
dogwood,
the trunk of a neighbor,
now gray and desiccated,
still a nearly perfect 4×4.
Could be the rail of a raised bed
if the chainsaw won’t flood.
The stream below,
banks sprouting skunk grass,
feeder springs swelling,
sounds
brushes on a snare drum
through riffles, fallen wood,
stone.
A surprising wind
brings a timpani.
I return to the graying
trunk, holes poorly drilled,
the woodpeckers’ challenge.
I pull my leather jacket tighter,
its graying, too.
The jacket, my dad’s loving
purchase from his trip to Baltimore
forty-six years ago.
The label says, “Exclusively
for the Brass Rail by Luis Alvear,”
XL, Made in Korea.
The jacket, once covering
turtleneck or sweater,
now for grilling and smoking,
salmon, pipe, cigar, brisket, weed,
gathering kindling,
toasting marshmallows,
playing grandpa.
My father’s leather jackets are in my
closet, pocked and dry
like the gray trunk,
only cowboy brown.
He’s been gone 15 years.
His jackets don’t fit.
But I can’t let them go,
even the one with the prune pit
in the pocket.
What will become of my own
once-black James Dean
bad-boy jacket?
It might fit my son,
daughter, son-in-law.
Or it might sit in a closet,
become only a burden.
Or will it be dropped on the
loading dock at Goodwill?
Do you want a receipt?
Should I keep something in the
pocket?
Should I relieve them of the burden,
take my jacket to Goodwill,
pick up the receipt
before the woodpeckers
come for me?
