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Fixing the Pipes
Royal Rhodes

The tall carpenter brought inside by the bald plumber
filled half the farm house’s one bathroom.

Severely leaking, disjointed pathways brought us here—
a cabinet-sized room with jerry-rigged pipes.

I held my side as the invisible point of pain turned
and caught awkwardly along a fleshy track.

Did I want drywall replaced? How about
the flooring between tub and tilted commode?

I told them to do the absolute minimum, just enough
to keep things functioning only a little longer.

But not to try to save everything or to fix
the unfixable, the things already too far gone.

We three shook on that, as they ducked out under
the low jamb, as I awaited my doctor’s call.

—
Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator who lives in rural Ohio. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

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