I Sit With Her in the Dark as She Weeps

March 20
When I was three, my father had to put down a sick cow. He had a shotgun and a sledgehammer to choose from for the job. Years later he explained to me why he chose as he did; he knew that the instrument he used was one he would likely never have the heart to pick up again.

My father built things. He occasionally also built the tools that allowed him to build other things. Twice that I can recall he sat and designed and then built a tool fit for a single, specific job, and once that discrete objective had been met, he greased and wrapped it in cloth and put it in a lower drawer on his bench, perhaps never to