she brings him tea, a piece of cheese late morn for he has been toiling since dawn his plane shaving the wood reverently the old oak speaking, though not complaining, in a language the man does not understand a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance, redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming… first from Ypres, the Verdun, now the Marne
before, he heaved hewn planks for the hopeful homes, built their pantries to be filled with the bread, the kind milk now the sawn boards are for those who once watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple sounds of sanding, sawing or anything at all
most of the lads do not come home, their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall, who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground