To Roof
Ah, to put a roofing spade
to desiccated shingles
To lean upon the spade-handle’s end
leveraging stubborn nails
from their impacted seats
To wrench my back
To abrade my bleeding hands again
stroking the asphalt’s pebbled face
To fight a wind while laying felt
which, like Ahab’s sails, would whisk me
to a mad roofer’s end
To slam my thumb once more
To slash my hands with flashing
imagining the course of rainwater
down a 4 square deck–
……… to place aluminum just so
as if I could plumb
a droplet’s depth
To race the advance of a front
To look skyward anxious
under gathering clouds
To become so unfocused in haste
my courses, like the venal
schemes of politicians, veer off
disordered and untrue
leaving poor substrate constituents
vulnerable to a deluge
Ah, but then, at last,
to button it up
To take the scaffold down
and store the ladder
To pack the tools and,
eye-balling the shingled slope,
wax smug
To hope again I’d out-danced
natural law
To think I’d punked Poseidon
(who pelts my roof with rain and hail)
To stride off then self-satisfied
and step upon a roofing nail
………………………
By Jim Culleny; Sept 27, 2009