At the Edge of Town

Hard to know which is more gnarled, the posts he hammers staples into or the blue hummocks which run across his hands like molehills. Work has reduced his wrists to bones, cut out of him the easy flesh and brought him down to this, the crowbar’s teeth caught just behind a barb. Again this morning the crowbar’s neck will make its blue slip into wood, there will be that moment when too much strength will cause the wire to break. But even at 70, he says, he has to have it right, and more than right. This morning, in the pewter light, he has the scars to prove it.