You always cleaned brushes
in the kitchen, backside
to my mother, green footprints

left on linoleum
from the porch just painted.
Rollers, sandpaper, scrapers and screwdrivers

emerged from the pail
a bottomless well
of squinting.

You would never neglect the arsenal
accumulated, turning each tool over
and over-the only one

allowed to touch them
had the gift to labor the stone
or wood or sheetrock.

Hanging from the basement ceiling and walls,
swinging and clanging mobiles;
hammers, files, saws.

Eyes fixed on the work in progress, banging away,
shaping the days of my childhood
and the years of my mother's

-sanded and varnished,
painted in latex,
always in need of repair.