D. S. Waldman
Parable
And each nail, as
promised, when pried
from the back wall of
the wooden shed into
which they had, over
the years, one by
one, been driven,
left a hole: what
long after memory
remains of what
was said and how
it felt. I have thought,
since, of the hammer and,
holding the hammer,
the hand—that
the doing and un-
doing were, themselves,
less a sort of gesture
than a distraction:
what, in the story, goes
unsaid. Yes, the nails,
the shed. A man
whose holiness lies,
like all holiness,
in ritual. But to whom
or what, with a handful
of nails, does the man
return? At what
point is a hole no
more than a place
where something used
to be? The house
was dark, save for
the pilot light, a pale
and steadfast blue
which, from across
the yard, he followed.
D.S. Waldman is a writer living on Kumeyaay land in San Diego, California, where he teaches creative writing. His work has most recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, New Letters, Diode, Poetry International, Los Angeles Review and Sugar House Review. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at San Diego State University. Learn more at dswaldman.com.