Wood Shop

Sawdust, wood glue, varnish, turpentine,
Table saw, band saw, nail gun—the suite

Of the garage-cum-cabinet shop
Anchored the rhythms of the ranch house

Never intended to shelter work
That now kept the house from being sold

Out from under the children it held.
Built deep enough into third-growth woods

That the din remained an annoyance
No more unbearable than the planes

Flying from the recreational
Airport built over swampland next door,

The transgression of residential
Zoning laws had been half-forgiven.

Everyone knew about the children,
Adopted, disabled, most of them,

And the carpenter in his wheelchair
Who built cabinets to support them.

And somewhere in there was a fable
About strange roaring in the deep woods.