Everything stored
had married rust: my father’s
red gas-mower, the scythe he swung

against the tall grass
before it went to scrub,
tools inherited from his father—

bent rake, chipped hoe, blunted ax.
In a corner squatted a rotten bucket
of ten-pennies, democratically

fused. That final spring, it looked
like a porcupine hibernating—
or the dog curled up at Pompeii.