Nails

By Derek Harmening

Whenever the clouds sag, I recall Mother’s coffee can: a pockmarked, rusted-out Caffé Vivo purchased in Newcastle during graduate school.

The repurposed can held Father’s hex bolts, eye lags, box nails. From it I filched the means with which to cement my idiocy.

To a ten-year-old, scouting for a tree house is a solemn rite. The warped oak, nestled behind the shed, was full of promise as a silent summer dawn.

With nails and branches I fashioned a ladder.

I slipped.

Thirty-four years later, the rain assails my collarbone. I remember Mother’s coffee can. I ache to finish what I started.