There's a line drawn in the sand.

"V as in Victor
A-H, S-E-N,"
she annunciates
into the phone
with the same cadence
indoctrinated into me
as a kid
by my mother
who no longer uses
the name.

"No, not B, V.
And it's H-S, not S-H."
I can hear her getting
agitated, glad it's not at me.

She waits for the recital.
I feel her pain
after years of trying
to explain the same name.

"Yeah, that's it."

She's too good at the speech
not to want it.

-------------

I'm working with my buddy
Dave the next day. Well, not with-- for.
He knows I could use the cash
and throws me some side work
when I call and ask him if he needs a hand
putting a boiler in or running some pipe.
He's thirty-five, married his high school sweetheart
and has three rambunctious boys
that love him dearly. I can hear it
in their voices when they answer his phone.
"Daddy, it's your friend Mike..."

I'm up on the ladder getting ready
to solder a joint. He reaches up to hand me
the torch when I notice some black electrical tape
wrapped around his middle finger.
"What happened, Mr. Accident Prone?"

"Cut myself on some copper."

"That stuff's supposed to make you money
not make you bleed."

"Yeah, yeah. Sweat that joint, Shakespeare."

Before getting back to the task at hand
my eyes are drawn to the adjacent finger.
He's one of the few men in the trade
I've seen wear his band.
It's supposed to be a safety issue--
tools or machinery could get caught in it, so they say--
but most guys just use that as an excuse
to leave it at home on their dressers.
The fact that Dave doesn't
is another reason to respect him.
What's a finger compared to a life?
I know which camp is mine.