The PBX box needed
To be moved.
Did I want to stay?
Of course I wanted money.
That’s all any of us
Were there for.
But they said at the
Safety meeting
Your gloves have
A rating of one
That’s right next to zero
You might as well
Wear paper,
Trim roses
And expect not to
Get cut.
Photos flashed of
Happy people
With children,
And I turned to
Sadie, who was
Studying to become
A firefighter,
The first female
In Iowa City,
And said, they’re
Showing us what
We’ll lose if we hurt
Ourselves or worse,
Die. And the woman
Giving the presentation
Said something non-
Sensical, about
Needing your fingers
To go duck hunting.
I mean, not that
You can’t hunt
Without fingers
And then a face
Through a birthday
Cake, an old face
Blowing out double eights
While the eight-year-old
Girl looks on with joy.
These are images
I can’t relate to.
And that’s what
Makes no sense.
The meeting adjourns
And before long,
I’m putting on those
Gloves next to zero
With the manager
Overlooking us,
Doing nothing
Save looking on,
Telling us
Right tool, right job,
And I’m sent to
Get a dolly
Appropriate for a
Three-hundred-pound box
Of circuitry,
And the whole thing
Pisses me off
So much when I go
To grab the pallet
I yank up and a shard
Of wood breaks off
In my thumb.
I might as well
Have been wearing paper,
I tell my dad,
When he asks
If I was wearing the gloves.
And the wound
Doesn’t heal.
A week, a month, three,
And there’s still
A circle of blood
At the entry site,
And most of the time
I ignore it, but sometimes
I wonder, and my mom says,
What if it gets infected?
So I end up at the free clinic
Where a doctor says,
When she sees the
Open wound,
Well, I don’t think
You’ll lose your hand
And I’m reading
Thich Nhat Hanh
In the waiting room,
And he says it’s not okay
For other people to
Hate you, but you can
Understand their emptiness
And he offers
Techniques for deep breathing
Particularly useful
At stressful times.
And he is trying to teach generations
How to love one another
Better, and that
Is a very noble goal.
And I scream behind
The steering wheel,
Please, God, if there
Is a God, don’t let me
Lose my hand. I pass
Walgreens. A surgeon
Has agreed to look at
The wound, but not
For a few weeks. He’s
Skiing somewhere,
And I’m at the bottom
Of the list. But he’s kind
To agree to do this.
And when I sit beside him,
A blue curtain goes up
Between us, my hand
Sticking through, and
I feel the nerves go numb,
And he looks through
His magnifier,
A piano version
Of “The Holly and the Ivy”
Playing on his stereo,
And he shows me
The shard he removed
Still covered in my blood
In a little petri dish,
And he asks if I have
Someone to drive me,
And my aunt is there,
And she helps me
Put my wool sweater
Back on. It’s all over
Now, I think,
As we drive home.
Past the mansion of
Brucemore, where
One day years before
My mom and I stood
And looked at dovecotes
And servants’ quarters
With wallpaper
And heard Ted Kooser
In an abandoned greenhouse
Read about walking
To the very back
Of the train of life.
Will Smiley worked outages at a power plant where he was foreman among the helpers. He has published in various literary journals, most recently Volt.
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
