The toolbox.(Brief Article)(Poem)

 
The Toolbox 
 
Who knows how long it held their ash-can like an urn 
on a mantel? Soot-dusted, until it crusted black 
with cinder grime and the furnace's slow burn, 
 
it took dad and me both to derrick that box 
up grandma's rot-sagged cellar stairs into the June light. 
We had to bolt-cut and twist its rusted locks. 
 
Inside, about what I expected: an assortment 
of oak planes, files, rasps. Dad lifted the squaring saw, 
thumbed its ash handle and said, that shingling hatchet 
 
and this old saw built the cabin where your grandma 
was born. Another June, another town, their house rose 
log by log. Through high school, I stole to our garage, 
 
knelt on the concrete block to touch …