issue 24 > light verse > harriss
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The Sophist Under the Soffitts
by Clarinda Harriss
those Saxonized suffixes of lintels,
parged to perfection by professionals
in the builders' guild--contemplates
the language of the trade: the rabbet
of the groove for a perfect ship-lap
no salt sea can split, sunder or cast aleak;
whether the windowframe must or won't
be plowed for ropes; how long the floor-
boards must 'relax' in the heat of the house
to forget the chill of the lumber-yard
and learn to lie down indoors. Considers
facia, marvels at Zimmerman Fasteners
delicate, elegant and tough, like the dainty
knees, elbows, shoulders of horses-
and what a can of worms squirms there,
pastern, hock and withers; puts his money
on language (suddenly overwhelmed by tout,
teaser, push, parley, juice, homedog, whale),
on language, he repeats, to outlive us all--
living, as every one of us does, in a house
of porridge, perfectly parged or not.