Carpentry for beginners

For Turnbull and Armitage

Until you’ve drilled through masonry
with a half-inch chuck, felt
the percussion take, shifted up a gear
as you hit a compact seam.

Until you’ve huffed a flash-cut blade
through reams of layered balsa
or watched a fine tooth saw kick
sparks like crickets in long grass.

Until you’ve turned oak flooring
with a dust extracting sander, leant
on the rip fence, listening to its thousand
orbits, crawled to every corner.

Until you’ve fed a stretch of teak
to the router’s gob for coving,
heard it gurn and struggle like a belt
in a tumble dryer.

Until you’ve ordered catalogues,
Hitachi, Bosch, Makita:
scoured them for names
that fit your tri-syllabic metre.

Until you’ve nicked the music
of somebody else’s job
for easy, sweatless kudos.
Until you’ve held an alan key
as though it were a pistol.

Until you’ve pulled your shirt off
to replace a shower curtain.
Until your chat with plumbers
becomes a subtle kind of flirting:
anything I can do to help, Fred?

Until the day you sand a knag
of driftwood, stand it halfway
up the stairs. Until your friends
ask you where you bought it.
Then you can rightfully hold
a soldering gun to the sky
and demand that you be read.