by Lynne Viti, from the chapbook Refuge:

Ode to a Tool Shed, at Midsummer

From a distance the structure promises shade, a respite,
its pull-up garage door open wide, welcoming me in.
Spades and shovels line up, and a few rakes and pitchforks.
Shelved trowels, oilcans, white plastic bottles and aerosol cans,
a coil of black plastic hose lying like a sleeping snake.
On the wooden shelves, coated with years of dust and dirt,

metal baskets overflow with wrenches and files.
On the floor—seventy-year-old concrete or beaten down earth? —
five-gallon jerrycans of gasoline, cloth tool bag with its mouth agape.
It would take twenty workers to deploy all these tools
to clear the land, prep the soils, rake in seed,
and it’s all been done—the evidence right outside this place,

lettuce, broccoli astride irrigation hoses, waiting for July.
But here, this tool-chaos cries out for someone to impose order,
arrange spades in descending order of height or by estimated age,
line up the neem oil, rot-stop, spinosad in alphabetical order,
assign a hook or niche for these hundred tools and potions.
But those who wield these things know just where to find them,

have a scheme known only to custodians of rakes and pitchforks.
Backing out slowly, careful to avoid a wayward rake’s tines,
I breathe in the scent of machine oil and earth.

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