In the Shop by Megan Windom

In the Shop by Megan Windom

On a hazy afternoon, doors open

to entice the air, with a heavy sigh,

around the saw blades, wrenches, and lumber

lined against the walls like withering teeth.

A film of dust covers most surfaces

except where it’s recently been stirred up.

In those places it’s grease or sawdust or

an unfortunate mixture of the two

cemented on items ‘til scrubbed away.

The older man picks at the displaced tools,

tossed aside when the younger men were done,

weighing by hand and measuring by eye,

he carefully replaces each object

on hooks, on shelves, in drawers, and tin cans.

The quiet chink of metal resonates

with each nut that clashes with another.

The shop looks like it’s turned into a place

where all the unused objects go to die.

Buried beneath unknown layers of grime

no one can recall what’s really broken.

But the older man picks up each object,

weighing by hand and measuring by eye,

he categorizes them in boxes,

so when you ask where there might be a fan

and he pulls on a latch to a side door,

though the air stirs with particles of dust

revolving around a single sun beam,

his steady hand pushes aside a box,

leaving a hand print, and reveals a fan

that whirls to life as soon as it’s plugged in.

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In the Basement of the Goodwill Store by Ted Kooser

In musty light, in the thin brown air   

of damp carpet, doll heads and rust,   

beneath long rows of sharp footfalls   

like nails in a lid, an old man stands   

trying on glasses, lifting each pair

from the box like a glittering fish   

and holding it up to the light

of a dirty bulb. Near him, a heap   

of enameled pans as white as skulls   

looms in the catacomb shadows,   

and old toilets with dry red throats   

cough up bouquets of curtain rods.

You’ve seen him somewhere before.   

He’s wearing the green leisure suit   

you threw out with the garbage,   

and the Christmas tie you hated,   

and the ventilated wingtip shoes   

you found in your father’s closet   

and wore as a joke. And the glasses   

which finally fit him, through which   

he looks to see you looking back—

two mirrors which flash and glance—

are those through which one day

you too will look down over the years,   

when you have grown old and thin   

and no longer particular,

and the things you once thought   

you were rid of forever

have taken you back in their arms.