ARM WRESTLING W/ THE HANDS OF TIME

Hunched over a table saw in the garage, his brittle body
sculpted from yellow fingernail, leathered appendages trembling,
the ashtray swimming with wood splinters
and the regal lions of Pall Mall’s unfiltered coat of arms,
he sat cursing everything within range of his spit.

He was a creaky folding chair in the church basement
on a Wednesday night, dying for someone for rent him
or borrow him for a function of some ilk—a family reunion
or a dinner party; a rendezvous, get-together, gospel outreach,
whatever—yearning for someone to sit with him.

His home smelled like the church basement, too,
a scent evocative of the public library but more desperate.
He showed us his rifle collection. He gave us coins and
pulled stumbles out of his trick knee. Abracadabra.
He’d tell us how Mussolini stored Nazi gold in the Vatican
and, after the war, the Catholics let the Nazis escape
to South America dressed as priests on jets.

We were too skinny, he’d tell us— all elbows and teeth.
I’m gonna lock you two in a room and I won’t open the door
‘til one of you eats the other one, he’d say.
We won’t eat each other, we’ll just wind up getting skinnier,
I’d tell him, and what good would that do?
Logic, you see.
He would chuckle and say something like,
we’ll see if you still feel that way on day 7.
His cedar fence was our outfield wall.