Building Poem by Stuart A. Paterson

He won’t change a tyre or put up a shelf
that won’t fall off or fall in on itself,
he won’t know the difference between neutral & live
or decorate, plaster, wire circuits, or drive.

He won’t know rawl plugs & screwheads & drills,
he’ll only respond to the red lettered bills,
& flat packs forever stay in the box
while he cowers from imponderable levers & locks.

Will he write you poems or occasional odes or
whisper you smiles of rhyme that he wrote
while you slept? He won’t be useful or good
in the ways of house-building or gathering food

but he’ll build you a poem, he’ll knock up a verse
from the driftwood, the old wool, the leaves in the hearth.
He’ll build it himself & he’ll build it to last
as long as a future, as short as a past.