selling all the automotive tools with papa

knowing & not knowing

all of your snow shovels are in different corners of your garage. papa shuffles around, squirreling into his puffy coat: chisels, corroded jigsaw blades, washers like old groszy. he knows & doesn’t know what he’s grabbing. the vinyl of your gloves shredded sifting ratchet from socket. there’s an adage that you have to translate madness into methodology. but transcribing gashes in papa’s workbench into any legible sticky note seems like taking oxides out of rust. he holds up a discarded left headlight to some unknown vehicle. he’s a child & you’re the adult. he’s the child & you’re the child. if he has too many drill bits, it must mean he had too many questions. or too many ways to translate, & a lack of problems to grapple with. or his problems could not be solved with drill bits or you or forgetting what a memory even is. is any trade of mechanics ever really organized? bearings & 1 mm screws line magnetic trays as if ellipses are stationary objects. what trails on or becomes a loose end depends on precision, you suppose. that his hands shudder with precision from slight chills. that he smiles when presented with a tool you can’t find a use for, that it means somewhere, in a distance you don’t precisely know, he recalls the shape of a name. that when you put your hand in his hand to lead him out of the cold, he knows who’s guiding him.