Two-Stroke Counsel

After checking the oil for the chain

and a quick pull on the starter rope

my father’s chainsaw rends the branches

No quarter given from the stainless steel teeth

The turning blade screams

Its’ danger in unsure hands

regardless, his grip is firm and confident

Swift and experienced strokes

make short work of the green and sap-filled wood

Saw dust drifts across my arms

We stack the severed pieces

in neat and orderly piles

to be burned in the cold of winter

I envy the purposefulness of it all

so different than our relationship

The thorns and twisted branches of it

Impervious to the sharpest blade of logic

or an anatomy of feelings

wrongs and mistakes never acknowledged

and certainly never discussed

The blade salves uneasy wounds

as we work together in the acrid haze

of an oily blue two-stroke exhaust