IV: For Jim, When My Car Broke Down

Thank God for women and men who
can do things with their hands.
I can cobble and stitch
words or make an idea
flow with the curve of beauty
or rant with crotchety sparks
but when it comes to crafting shelves
or sewing a hem it would be a
compliment to say I'm all thumbs.
And growing up, you see, means
making repairs–cleaning surfaces,
adjusting structures, replacing parts-­-
machines and bodies and minds
are always breaking down so we
must all be doctors.

Thank God for women and men who can do
things with their hands.
Toulah can, while shortening
my daughters' snowpants, move
up the inner webbing and finish
it all so neatly you'd swear
that's how they had been made.
When my car broke down, the taxi­-
driver with a few well aimed
questions could describe the
clogged soul of my machine
down to the last significant
crack, and Tino's brother
(a little Portuguese with a wry
unshaven body whose every
third word was fuck) started
me again with a single tap.
While many men knew how to do
it, only he could find and
reach the hidden part.

Thank God for women and for men who
can do things with their hands.
Jim found Tino's brother hands
followed and ferried me about
persisting where I would have
wandered off distracted by a
thought, a word, a sight, he
being a handy man committed
to the way things work. Confabulous
Jim! Middle-age is life's high
summer where men and women
can do whatever they will and he
is on the nether edge. Now that
Mother and Father are coping with
death's queer blandishments and we
are no longer provided for, his
precise, pursed, Scottish help
is a friendship well worth having.

Thank God for women and for men who
can do things with their hands.
Thank God for women.
Thank God for men.
Thank God for friends.