Grindstone                                                                         —Trent Busch


The sun is out today,
bringing with its false hope 
cold weather; on beaches
somewhere nearly naked
girls are turning themselves,
perhaps under umbrellas.

I’m not glad to be here
but not unglad not to
be there either, working
inside at something not
burdened with tough angles
that I’ll miter later.

Against the wall below
a window is a grindstone
once worked by my grandfather,
over which I have built
a small table; you can
see the handle I turned

for him hot summer days,
splash of rusty water,
wooden, right angled like
a bicycle pedal,
stuff on top of stuff with
stuff balanced above it.

They are putting lotion
on themselves on those beaches,
round and round in the sun.
Don’t you ever tire of work?
I do not say, his hair
full, gray above the blade.

Trent Busch

Trent Busch grew up in rural West Virginia and lives in rural Georgia. He owns a small place out in the country where he builds furniture. His recent book of poetry, not one bit of this is your fault, was published by Cyberwit.net in 2019. His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Poetry, The Nation, Threepenny Review, North American Review, Chicago Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, New England Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, Northwest Review, Kenyon Review, American Scholar, Shenandoah, and more recently in Notre Dame Review, Evansville Review, Agni Online, Boston Review, Sou’wester, Poetry Daily, Natural Bridge, and The Hudson Review. His poem “Edges of Roads” was the first place winner of the 2016 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize, Published by Winning Writers.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019