A 30-foot wood ladder, solid
and heavy, braced against the house
waiting for paint. Not the siding.
Asphalt shingles can last for years.
fortunately. The window frames
of a two-and-a-half story house.
Windows done, Grampa yells up,
Come on down for lunch!
And inside for baloney sandwiches
in his second-floor apartment.
I always rent out the downstairs.
Who wants to live up here, where it’s hot?
Before I can take my first bite,
he tells me I should have a beer,
then opens the door to his attic.
He keeps his Schmidt’s on the stairs.
Two sandwiches and Have another beer!
later, I’m back under the hot summer sun.
Painting the attic vent first, I then shift to
a lower point, if twenty-two feet up is low,
and start on the eaves and fascia, working
my way to the peak at 32 feet. Two warm beers
in thirty minutes on a hot summer’s day,
with a ninety-year-old man holding the ladder.
What could possibly go wrong? With a slight wobble
in the ladder and sweat pouring off of me, I slap
that oil base on like there’s no tomorrow,
scoot down the ladder, lower its extension, and lug it
to the garage as he says, Do the front tomorrow?
I think I’ll stick to water for that side.
Ken Gierke is retired and lives in Missouri. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in such places as The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetry Breakfast, Amethyst Review, Silver Birch Press, Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and his poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, Heron Spirit in 2024, and Random Riffs in 2025, have been published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/
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