Tell me, how do the manufacturers of tools

turn a profit? I have used the same clawed hammer

for forty years. The screwdriver misted with rust

once slipped into my young hand, a new householder’s.

Tools wait obliviously to be used: the pliers,

notched mouth agape like a cartoon shark’s; the wrench

with its jaws on a screw; the plane still sharp enough

to take its fragrant, curling bite; the brace and bit

still fit to chew a hole in pine like a patient thought;

the tape rule, its inches unaltered though I have shrunk;

the carpenter’s angle, still absolutely right though I

have strayed; the wooden bubble level from my father’s

meagre horde. Their stubborn shapes pervade the cellar,

enduring with a thrift that shames our wastrel lives.