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Wood
by Diane Tucker too much in love with skin to splinter you, painted and worn wood smoothed grey by many shoes wood finger-oil printed wood pierced with bolts lacerated by rusty nails wood is the spongy skeleton of the living tree a floor, a shelf, an old guitar freckled with nicks these are our relationship with wood naked wood peeking out from under the chipped paint – a body we are invited to love wood gives, wood swells, it responds to tears on the air or the absence thereof how we coax it into its afterlives with saw and sandpaper, bolt, screw, oil and wax we mummify the tree’s body, brighten and smooth it to comfort ourselves (a stair rail rounded under the descending hand, a solid knife handle, well-balanced baseball bat) infusing every fibre with what we can of timelessness, out of the dead stems of trees we wring life after life |
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