” … a cabinet was specially made. O’Dowd’s wife Evangeline
had an uncle, Jethro Fryer, a carpenter who took on this task.
SANDRA BURT
i hammer nails & saw wood (to make his
house of whitman his shadow cabinet
not a coffin so much as a grave of words
a grove within which they sit together
eva (my niece with her apples & he his -
leaves of glass or whatever he does
no matter I am really a carpenter & i am
alive in a book in these lines of poesie
my name is (jethro fryer it's a name to
whisper down lanes or to slice shavings
of curled wood from a plane or chisel
with, some trick played with mirrors
a dovetail joint almost invisible my
fingers search the seams for meanings
a quiet word or a pencilled line a blade
in the workshop the rich scent of horses
& foggy blurred monday morning noise
he strides in like the prophet of nonsense
morning jethro! uncle in law i ask you
(it's an apothecary's cabinet he's wanting -
to place his liquor above a young one's
innocent grasping hands though (oh no he
says not that nothing like that at all in
fact whitman (he - see whitman leaves
he intones leaves of glass well he's almost
lost meh there look here he starts sudden
pointing to his jacket you see this here
he insists it's a leaf a blade soft green
- & so I want a cabinet that's made of leaves
do you follow meh jethro (i do, i swear!
inside his whitman cabinet he places the latest
masterpiece lord captain nice & snug it sits
o it rests against its brothers like depressions
six children in a single bed & as for meh
i remember generations sleeping outside on
wide verandahs come winter or summer
when the rains fell (all safe as mother's milk
beneath thin blankets thicker sheets
young men brought up on tough love walking
miles to school (over glass we used to
joke strong as draught horses nevertheless -
their calluses written into the books he
pores over every day for meaning imperial law
that i abhor on principle but digest being
principled in defence of the commonest men
imaginable (railway sleeper men abattoir
workers no one else will take on we see through
them all their manhood & their memories
streetwalkers (whistles of a policeman as his
truncheon made a drunkard dance arcs
his dripping spittle yes i correspond & try to
keep up with things receive books
& newspapers in the mail still smelling of
the postman's horse & hands of mother
sunshine soap (wrappings torn & frayed here
just in behind the door of this cabinet
still coyly hiding the latest captain it's
a hit already & he hasn't even read it
