Winterizing by Greg Watson

My brother and I pulled the old ladder
from the loft of that damp, falling-down garage,
snapped the cold and grimy storm windows
into place one by one, our mother imploring us
from the earth below not to breaks our necks,
not to slice our fingers on those jagged
pieces not yet repaired, broken by flying balls
or an elbow thrown back in self-defense.
We caulked up the wind-trembling cracks,
closed off the uninsulated storage room,
hoisted great, thick sheets of plastic
over anything else left facing the light.
A new silence took root inside each room,
everything suddenly nearer, muffled.
Sometimes I imagined those sheets to be
sails, as if we were about to set forth
toward a world we could not yet fathom.
But only the darkened edges of trees
shook themselves occasionally, the vague
shapes of winter bodies passing outside.
You had to have faith that something out there
was being created, something both startling
and familiar coming back into focus,
so slowly, so tentatively that none of us
would have noticed, or been able to speak it.



Greg Watson's work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. His most recent poetry collection is All the World at Once: New and Selected Poems. He is also co-editor with Richard Broderick of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood.