Poetry Sample: Inherited Wisdom

I wrote this fictional free verse poem for a class.

Inherited Wisdom

I've never seen my dad change the car's oil.
No one showed my dad,
so he never dared try it; his car was too
expensive for experiments.

I remember when Dad tried to install
a doorknob. He carefully,
carefully, read the directions,
studied the diagrams, and called his tools the wrong names.

"Grandpa died before I could be taught
guy stuff," he'd tell me when I would teach him
with my knowledge gleaned from Boy Scouts.

I thought my dad should know everything.
After all, he could shoot from the hip, jabber baseball,
do wheelies on a bike, smack a basketball swoosh into the hoop.

We made quite the pair.
I liked to slice wildly
with saws while Dad was cautious, using manuals
to guide him between pinched fingers.

A little knowledge made me dangerous and sloppy
while a lot of inexperience
made Dad careful and precise.

"You know, Grandpa built the shed out back," he'd say
when we visited Grandma. I nodded, sneaking peeks
at the toolbox collecting bumps of rust.

Boy Scouts kept me out of his dilemma, but
created another. I did not want Dad
to help at the Klondike Derby, when we built
our own sleds to race. The other guys might hear him call pliers "wrenches."
It'd be okay except they'd never seen him shoot from the hip.

I remember when Dad struggled
to change the tire on the way to the Little 500.
Long past lunchtime and no restaurant in sight,
windshield wipers helpless against a spring
storm's rampage while poor Dad flopped in the eddy
of icy water under the car.
I worried that the car would collapse on him.
He managed yet never gained familiarity with a jack

Dad earned independence, but no polish.
I'm now grown, dexterous with Dad's old enemy,
and can jabber baseball. My science nut son
doesn't like hammers or baseball. I'm clueless
about his passion. I guess tools are useful
but there is more to life than being
a handyman.