My wife’s trade dream at last comes true.
I’m painting our fence.
Happily, a watercolour.
Alas, full scale.
My lone hue: Pine Green.
I’d rather daub Wollemi on a wet block.
But Radiata beckon.
New palings, these. And rough!
A lumber party gone mad.
Grain to take your arm off.
Splinters to nail your soul.
Beneath these, the old fence.
Wood so frail it seems to skein the next world.
I lean to see, think better, then slop on hope of a few years more.
The fresh planks betrayed a frame askew.
A baleen careen, raw to all (especially my blushing bride).
So this job is style over substance,
lacking both.
On a rosy note, my defection means I needn’t think of baby jesus et al. at all.
This Sunday morn is twixt me and the gatepost.
A wholly better confessor.
My sole role: paint timber.
This frees dwindling RAM.
To ponder a hair.
Is it me, or the brush?
Which of us has really applied?
I laboured yesterday, too.
So immersed, I didn’t hear the school tractor.
Until summer slashing dusted my stander.
Like gauze in the day afore diesel.
Two Greek ladies appraise:
‘How much for the tin?’
‘Why you no use a the gun? Bap bap bap bap bap!’
Because I’m just painting the new boards.
‘Ahh.’
But I lie.
Ancient adjacents cry for love.
I empathise, accommodate.
And for precious seconds we all blend in.
The sun stings.
Time to stop.
I step back to regard my work.
Mistake.
Next time,
I use a the gun.
[First published 14 Mar 2021.]