Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “A Straightener of Nails” by Glen Sorestad, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in December 2020.

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A Straightener of Nails

By Glen Sorestad

Whenever my father spotted a nail, bent or twisted
by errant hammer, discarded as useless because it was
no longer true, he always picked up the reject to carry

along with him to where he kept an old tobacco can,
where the off-kilter joined the collection of cripples
needing his attention. It was a task for another day.

I was too young to understand his reason for doing this,
nor to fathom what satisfaction he received for his
slow and deliberate care in returning each nail to true.

This was when my father’s livelihood was driving
his car down gravel or dirt roads selling Fuller brushes,
then Electrolux vacuums, Nutty Club confectioneries.

He eked a meagre wage, but his heart was never in it.
His honesty and regard for others road-blocked sales
targets and he could never pressure anyone to buy.

Rainy weekends, I would find him in his workshop,
happy with his hammer and his tobacco can, working
against time to set things right, the only way left to him.

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Copyright © Glen Sorestad

First appeared in Poetry Pause in December 2020.

Glen Sorestad has published over 25 books and chapbooks of poetry; his poems have been translated into many languages. Sorestad was a founding member of Thistledown Press, was named Saskatchewan’s first Poet Laureate and was made a Member of the Order of Canada. He’s an Honorary Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets.

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