Ode to the Steam Box

The steam box is used for bending   frames and planks in traditional boatbuilding. With a match I became a man who summoned diesel from the yellow caverns of a ten-gallon jug, called the flame now hissing out the hose at the small house of  water, that rusted drum from which travels an excruciating wetness — this is what makes the body otherwise, what makes it sing. To take that which has decided on a shape, and bend, without breaking, the lengthening fibers. To give the straight thing curve. To make of  the tree a song grown long in a linseed skin, the slick hot strake waiting to become parcel of  the round world again.