Lowe’s Hardware Department (Round 2)

Let's workshop this poem about a father haunted by an incident suggestive of domestic violence as he talks with a sales associate about replacing a door with a hole in it

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Lowe’s Hardware Department 

Trying not to appear trying to incline
my unpocketable knuckles—swollen
and encrusted, glistening with pus, hot
to the touch—away from his line of sight, 

the red-vested associate holds my eyes 
through their wobbles, “Are we talking 
interior or exterior?” “I guess, well—
interior? Goes garage to kitchen,” I say

(managing not to mumble in my shame,
as the image strikes again of my toddler
long watching me weep through the hole
before whispering “Daddy, are you okay?”)

“That’s exterior, actually. You’ll need
reinforced, not hollow-core like this.”
“This’s more like the old one, though.”
“Nope. No good for exterior. A fist”—

my wife’s arms take his face from the hole—
“can punch right through. Tear you up
for sure, ’cause the veneer splinters crazy.
But its easy. Listen. Hear that? Hollow.”

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This poem is unpublished

Photo: zippia.com/lowe-s-careers-6930/jobs/sales-associate/