The hazy odor of weed smoke
and smoked ribs waiting inside the doorway,
the metal cups and the water
that tastes lightly like rust,
the heat that makes your thighs stick
to the plastic chairs on the porch,
the grass and moss cling to the
old fishing rods, and horseshoes, and soccer balls, and baseballs
and whatever else could be lying under there –
This is Grampa Rodge’s house.
The house of a man who lives alone
with a dog and the nature outside his door,
With music inside his head and the memory of work,
women and families gone but eventually returning.
His fixations on blues guitar
and depictions of elephants dominate the space,
and relics of his hard-knock, bluesman life
assemble in tightly packed groups
because there is no space in the house to put between them.
It’s hot outside, so it’s hot inside
because there is no wall in the back to separate them.
From indoors you can see shrill touch-me-nots
screaming their pink and yellow heart-shaped-heads
from the garden against a green afternoon.
Grass and moss have claimed the unused fishing rods,
briny and sticky,
and horseshoes once painted bright colors
and whatever else could be down under there.
In the summer Rodge wears denim overalls
and hardly anything else.
His feet are black,
Stained by the dirt he walks on.
His skin is brown and
His nails do not stop growing.
He will never stop playing guitar.
Every day is the same,
every day is perfect.
The sun rises.
Compost turns.
