The Handyman

What you liked at first was the

stiffness, the silence, an object of quiet intelligence

and out of those soft shades of grief bellowed a working mind

a floating labyrinth 

in which a man invited himself

to dine, bathe and rest.

While the structure slowly crumbled

all around him.

He wakes up the first night

barely notices the shabby curtains

the peeling paintwork

the leaking windows

and thumps down the deck eagerly

ready to plug the holes of this sinking ship

that clung desperately to the foaming shore

Not that he took notice

Adamant they were bound south east

Based on a feeling he once had

That this ship would serve his purpose

The water would flow the 

way it should

and take him down the path he wanted

An opportune wreckage

He placed his forehead on the barnacled hull,

cleared his throat and whispered

in low, dulcet tones,

‘I will always be your captain, your handyman’

even though he possessed no skill

in plugging holes, only drilling them. 

He wrote himself every day

sometimes on the dirtied sheets in the bedroom

with red pen

or carved into the mouldy oak beams

But he was more enamoured

with the colour of the ink he had chosen

than his etchings

in the wood that had survived eons

without so much as a scratch

After the tenth moon passed

From the draft through the floorboards he developed chilblains on his heels and toes

It was then that he learned his ship was not fit to sail

tossing the sheets out the door

he smashed the windows, ripped the curtains

kicked the plugs out

and set fire to the mast

‘what a waste of time,’ he muttered,

‘stupid thing’

stomping through the sand with his back to the water and flame

while the bloody pyre spat and spluttered most graciously

to the depths of the perilous sea.

(January 2021)