Ode to the Steam Box

By Matthew Nienow Matthew Nienow

The steam box is used for bending frames and planks in traditional boatbuilding.

With a match I became a man

who summoned diesel

from the yellow caverns

of a ten-gallon jug, called the flame

now hissing out the hose

at the small house of water, that

rusted drum from which travels

an excruciating wetness — this

is what makes the body

otherwise, what makes it

sing. To take that

which has decided on a shape,

and bend, without breaking,

the lengthening fibers. To give

the straight thing curve.

To make of the tree a song

grown long in a linseed skin,

the slick hot strake waiting

to become parcel

of the round world again.

Source: Poetry (January 2013).