The Garage

Sitting here at the keyboard I can pull open the sagging double wooden doors of the garage where long ago I plot nighttime raids on plum and pear trees, construct crystal radios to pick up that exotic Del Rio, Texas station, where buckets of foul water are suspended over the doors in elaborate snares for friends in disfavor, where giggling girls with budding boobs are tempted to smoke stale cigarettes and then laugh at attempts to feel them up; arming for battles on cold nights and throwing rocks at my brother Wayne or Bill Leet or Charles Parent or Joe Silvio or John Wayne Collier or J.C. Saintangelo as they dance out of the dark, coming close, their breaths visible laughter in the cold air, flashing through the spill of light out of the doors just for a moment; and where long ago on Sundays my father spends his day off drinking Falstaff beer and puttering between the unpainted walls, his vast array of tools spread out on various workbenches, fixing bicycle flats, busting knuckles and holding them against the cold beer can, tightening the handlebar on the same bicycle, perhaps, but usually repairing dip nets or fooling with minnow jars for bait, tying lines and swivel hooks for a catfish line, and one day a clear varnish on the wooden frame of my backpack used not as much for camping as it was for adventures imagined, dreams of excape, long hikes away from household tension.