That First Thursday

mike swanberg

vincent assures me that with the right tools
and a little time he could make new furniture.
when he expatriated from canada he apprenticed
as a carpenter, and now knows the intricacies of cabinets,
the graceful subtleties of crown molding.

he and i are sitting and toasting the cold january night.
a bottle of whiskey shared between us,
two cans of diet coke.

When i raise my glass it is always to something
we cant actually touch, a toast to birds shadows
rocketing across the lawn, one more for the luck
that comes from kissing a beautiful girl near a fountain.

and vincent toasts his grandfather, who got killed in the war.
then, nursed back to health by a veterenarian,
suddenly found himself unkilled and in love with the mans daughter.

the story isnt hard for me to believe ,
having watched vincent die and be reborn
in the time it took for our waiter to arrive
with his crown and coke and my ice water.

Even the chair you are sitting on, he says
i made with my own hands
and that bed in the corner.

i do almost everything i can to hide my envy.
my own hands seem dumb, and hardly used,
just waiting at the end of my arms for chance
there is something interesting to touch
every now and then.

so I raise my glass towards his bookshelf
i declare that if i could make furniture
i would have no business in writing.

if i could be proficient in anything else
i would stop this telling and telling,
i would shoot the dog in me that is content
to sit on the porch all day licking itself.

but if he hears me, it doesnt matter.
there is a girl coming over who we dont know quite yet,
but we are sure is going to be a whole lot of trouble.

and darkly, so darkly we are both in love with her
that we cant even realize,
that if we had the tools and means to do it,
our best option in that moment
is to barracade the door.