The Boys Work on a To-Scale Replica Miniature Model of Robinson Jeffers’s Castle

Tor House and Hawk Tower
on Aaron’s mother’s den floor
and the boys can’t figure how

to hang stones in the sky for Una,
let alone each other, and begin to ask
what did Jeffers hide between the stones

or maybe between the mortar
on his trowel and the same stones
labored up the bluff? Cody whispers

at night after the boys are asleep
and a wolf haunts a stone tower.

Coarse hair splintered or bone
do you remember my father?
He crawls behind the splits
Jeffers tore into the sky.

In day the boys continue to build
for the sake of building: they build
the sheetrock to break just to build again, build

the boot to scuff the wainscoting, build
the fur to hold the howl, build
the floor to cover the earth, build

the cliff to hold the bay
and will wash Una in it, build
the timber to build the tree, build

the post to fall the beam, build
the shoal to carry the seine, build
the boy too weak to worry, build

the rock to tip the rod, build
the boot sole to lift up
and look under, build
the tarp to cover what’s left. 

 
John Patrick McShea

John Patrick McShea is from Pennsylvania. He holds degrees from Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His writing appears or is forthcoming in Sonora Review, Hotel Amerika, Salamander, and Saranac Review, among others.

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