In the Kitchen on a Saturday Morning

Three men 
in a circumference of scant sentences, 
slow dull sounds 
trade expertise, 
repeat each other’s names, 
sounds solid as boards— 
Tom, Michael, Blaine (the contractor, 
the architect, my husband). 
Mingling with pots and plates 
are the fragrances of just-washed bodies,
after-shave, detergents, denim and soil,
nothing intimate or sticky. 
If not invisible, I might intrude. 

None of the three rushes to assent 
nor to fill the acreage between phrases.
There are parts of the self to give out, 
parts to keep in. 

Weeks before tools will drop to the floor
and bits of wood inhabit the cracks, 
before sweat broils 
in the brown wires of muscular arms, 
the trio shift and divide 
the sum of their weight, 
limber their knees, 
unknot the coins in their pockets. 
Occasional questions escape their mouths,
then flatten out 
at the ends of the lines.