I strip the porch roof, pick out the used
nails, and toss the shingles down onto
 
a drop cloth, remembering when I shingled
my grandmother's roof fifty years ago:
 
the tar smell, the brackets, planks, and
ladders all the same, but level now
 
with hemlock limbs instead of locust.
I lug four shingles up the ladder, kneel
 
and drive the old nails home, slide
another shingle into place, pound,
 
toes bent, knees creaking. Miserliness,
a friend jokes about the nails, but I call it
 
caring, thinking of the man who gave
us this land on the cove, the cottage, the boat-
 
house full of boats. The only time I saw
him he was at his work bench, a rich
 
man straightening nails, moving from
the bent can to the anvil to the straight.