A Saturday to sort the shed

A Saturday to sort the shed—

shelves jam-packed with shellac, 
paint & primer, satins & semi-gloss, 
stacked spirits & half-cans of Minwax 
(Dark Walnut, Cherry & something 
called Bombay Mahogany Gloss),
stiff brushes & rollers strewn 
across a tideline of caulk guns, 
sealant & Quikrete. 

If you shellac an autographed baseball 
it will darken over time & diminish 
the resale value, as if the female lac bug 
secretes a spell in the channels of shellac 
she builds on the bark of the kusum tree 
to remind us of the shelf life of memory,
the futility of putting a sheen on decay.

My father used to say, “The Dodgers took 
a shellacking last night,” 
as if the bad loss, maybe a shutout, 
came via a sea of resin, 
the shortstop slowed by a gummy glove, 
basepaths coated in glue.
He was 17 when his beloved team 
left Brooklyn for L.A., landing
practically next door to his Sierra Madre home.
He would never use the word prayer,
but from his retelling, sometimes, 
against merciless history,
the beyond belief sneaks through, takes form.

And in 1921, didn’t my father’s father run 
his hands along the ship rails, 
shellacked oak & brass, 
looking for his reflection in the gloss, 
another immigrant story, so common 
& astonishing—the packed passage 
on the Gothland, four masts & a speed of 14 knots, 
built to fit 218 in cabins, 
converted to cram 1,800 in bulk, 
the columns of the manifest the same 
for nearly every name:

Calling or Occupation: None
Race or People: Hebrew

From Bialystok to Ellis Island, 
my grandfather—17 & alone.
At 17 I thought my life depended 
on a prom date & borrowing 
the family station wagon.

I want to read the unwritten diary 
of that teenaged leather-cutter,
a day in his life in a Brockton shoe factory.
I want to know whether he wrote 
love letters to my grandmother
and what put the two of them on the road.
Was California a lustrous dream 
yet to be dreamt?

And who dreamed up the color 
of this dented can—Early American—
well past its expiration date among the putty & paint, 
the scraper I thought I’d lost, a clamp 
that once held together the glue-repaired chair.
If I can find a screwdriver, I’ll pry the can open 
& look inside, stir what’s settled 
beneath the gleam.

TIM RAPHAEL

Tim Raphael lives in northern New Mexico between the Rio Grande Gorge and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with his wife, Kate. They try to lure their three grown children home for hikes and farm chores. Tim’s poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. He is a graduate of Carleton College.