Bernie's Hardware Store
The wooden floor wore
decades of dust.
Near the doorway
brooms grew out of a fire bucket
and bloomed in an odd
array of heads. A pile of coir mats
lay stacked in a wheelbarrow,
all chorused in a WELCOME.
Bernie's store was a haphazard
sprawl of hardware stuff
and followed no order at least
by any stretch of logic.
Hammers were paired
with paint, boxes of nails
mixed company with hinges
and fittings for copper pipes. And yet,
Bernie had every item carefully
mapped in his head.
Ask for something
and he would take you
straight to the spot.
It had the air of a serious place,
almost like a church. Tools were
the blessed instruments
of a sacred order, treated with care
and reverence. Back then
power tools were just coming in
but none contaminated
the sanctified air of Bernie's
hardware store.
On the back wall,
above the garden tools,
hung a plain wooden crucifix
beside a picture of Bernie's
late wife. From her lofty height
she seemed to look down
with an approving smile every time
the cash register rang,
accompanied by a “thanks”.
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