Nails

My first job
At age seven
Is straightening
Nails I pull from scrap
Lumber for later reuse so
I use the hammer to pry them
Out then place them on the smooth
Concrete sidewalk to hammer as
Straight as possible then toss
Them onto a basket for my
Dad and elder sisters to
Use on our moveable
Painting scaffold to
Paint our two-story
House which gets
My elder sisters
To tell their
Teenage
Friends
Is a
New
Wing to
Our house
But the scaffold
Over years just moves
Around the house as my
Dad would never pay painters
To do what he could get us to learn.
Random corporation Air Force
Training manuals and each
Scientific American mag
Was our reading fare
Giving us an idea of
How ion drive ship
Propulsion works
In 1955 plus the
Morse code at
Supper time
As my Mom
Played yet
Another
Broadway
Show album
Or classical music.
Nails to us were steel
Not manicured and
Painting meant
Scraping and
Sanding as
Well as
Art.