Tearing Down the Shelves

With a ramshackle crack, the particle board, warped
under decades of half-sorted boxes and bins,

folds on the crowbar. I slow
to brace it, stepping back,

in case the rotted section, surrendering to gravity,
groaning with the last of its stress, bashes my skull.

It’s cool in the furnace room
where former owners stored

surplus and seasonal needs for the semi-detached.
Their ghosts yield tenure as I amputate brackets

ad hoc with signs of
hand saw and hammer blow,

each quarter-moon dint in pine preserved
like a fingerprint. I jimmy the scraps; bent

finishing nails squeal
as old shelves skew,

broken shims twist and submit. Upstairs, neck
and wrists in a filmy shawl of dust, I shift beneath

the shower head
to undress from

what’s left of the detritus, plotting the work
ahead in a delusion of repair, and try

to feel vaguely useful
above the gurgling drain.