The Resistance

The bathroom latch is loose again,

rattling in the draft of the hallway.

I grabbed the handle of the middle drawer

and yanked until the wood gave up,

a splintered groan from the pine track.

It’s jammed on a steel ruler,

angled like a bone set wrong.

In the gap, I see the plumber’s card,

Miller, who died of a stroke in ‘21,

welded to a stick of cinnamon gum.

The red foil is bleached to a dull rust.

They are fused together in the dark,

the man who fixed the pipes

and the sugar that outlived him,

holding the drawer against me.