In a South Dunedin Garden.(Poem)

 
IN A SOUTH DUNEDIN GARDEN 
 
   My dad's dad, Louis, looked alter his tools, 
     his implements. He sharpened chisels 
       and saws, cleaned the head of his hammer 
 
   till it gleamed like a glans. He tapped shovels 
      and spades on the toe of a dusty boot, 
         and hosed the last of the dirt off until the metal 
 
   shone as the sun smarted there, a fiery 
     approbation and an answering leer. 
       And then he went and washed his hands 
 
   in a big-bellied tub in the garden shed. 
      We washed in the same water, my thin 
        white and his rough-skinned fingers 
 
   writhing and squirming like fledglings 
     in a nest. Waste not, want not, he said 
        ...