Steve McDonald: “The Garage”
THE GARAGE
The darkness that opens into the garage
already calls to the grandchildren.
We stand on the threshold, one child
holding my left leg, the other my right hand.
I switch on the one wall light as we step
into the dimness and the door shuts behind us.
In the shadows where the freezer hums,
rakes and a broom and a shovel hang
from hooks like bony icons suspended
from the walls of a dusty church.
Beyond them, a workbench, toolbox
on one end, vise on the other, unfinished
projects scattered like votive candles—two
rocker light switches for the dining room,
two toilet-fill valves and flappers,
one waterproof garden light to replace
the broken one below the carrotwood tree,
and above the workbench a sheet of pegboard:
Phillips-head and flathead screwdrivers,
open-end and adjustable wrenches,
slip-joint, needle-nose, and channel-lock pliers,
and there, beyond the workbench, the set
of sockets my father gave to me when I,
a young man, stood with him in his garage,
his own workbench a depository of plans
and incompletions, the brief hyphen of his life
touching mine from the dim reaches of his garage.
Steve McDonald has published two full-length books of poetry and two chapbooks. His second full-length book, Credo, was a finalist in the 2016 Brick Road Poetry Competition, and his second chapbook, Golden Fish / Dark Pond, won the 2014 Comstock Review Chapbook contest. McDonald’s poetry has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, North American Review, Boulevard, Rhino, Nimrod, Catamaran, Atlanta Review, RATTLE, Best New Poets, and elsewhere.