Tools

The cellar is full of them, cobwebbed 
together like unused synapses.

Every morning I take inventory. Every morning 
something goes missing, the outlines 
of handsaws, planers, and pliers on the peg board 
filled with nothing but holes.

I shine a flickering flashlight into 
dank corners, rummage through crumbling 
boxes with labels too faded to read.

But what’s gone missing stays missing.  

Maybe they were never there at all,
like early childhood memories planted
in my brain by shadowy photographs.

Or maybe the only tool I really need
is a spirit level to even out all the aspirations 
in my life that have gone awry.

Kip Knott | Childhood Memories of Sulphur Springs, Ohio
Contents | Mudlark No. 50 (2013)