Cash's Saw


In the lantern light his face is calm, musing.

Every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing.

The saw against his leg, his sweating arms covered in sawdust, his face composed.

It will give her confidence and comfort.


His saw snores steadily into the board,

Chuck. Chuck. Chuck.

He is stooping steadily at the board in the failing light,

laboring on toward darkness.


The sound of the saw is steady, competent, unhurried, stirring the dying light.

A thin thread of fire running along the edge of the saw,

lost and recovered at the top and bottom of each stroke.

The saw has not faltered, the running gleam of its pistoning edge unbroken.