sticks tender_square my father led me into a barn-like structure, a two-story house of sticks that would be passed onto me. there was no separation between the floors; i stepped into the cool, damp darkness and looked up into the vaulted ceiling. and sunlight trickled through slivers in the walls and starlight squeezed its way through the roof cracks. i asked what the space was for and my father said, “let me show you.” we walked through forested acreage belonging to neighbors along a dirt road, kicking up dust with our footsteps. i thought he was showing me a parcel of land with trees to fell, with wrinkled giants to hack and portion into bundles, parishioners to house inside the cathedral of sticks. but the scene shifted, and suddenly we were walking along the waterfront beside a factory where whiskey aged in wooden casks for a quarter century and the air was impregnated with yeast. i saw how the sun made sparkles of every wave that pushed to shore, the way my father made his hand a boat that coasted on the crests, and knew that my inheritance was to be a house of light. 220412 what's it to you? who go blather from