Watching the light of the sun
setting across a worn barrel of wood,
the hammer handle,
cold steel hackles of claws,
six ounces of steel
crouched on the rug before the
front door.
It was my father's hammer.
(Well, he asked if there was anything I wanted
and it was this,
this piece of iron with a hardwood handle saturated with his sweat that I wanted.)
The handle drilled and filled with beeswax for driving spikes.
The wax, he explained once,
would melt and ease the driving,
and then harden to hold the nails in the wood.
I remember now watching him use this hammer
outdoors in the sun and sweat,
in the workshop fluid with wood smells.
I remember the sound it made as he dropped it back into his toolbox,
the predictable smack against the plywood
of the shoulder box that slipped neatly into the chest.
It is there now
where my daughter has dropped it
after who knows what project,
her hand conforming to the curve of the handle,
my hand,
his.