Lumberman

April Nelson

During the Jazz Age,
my grandfather logged in the hollers of
Kentucky
up on those peaky hills
with a mule
a saw or two
some ropes and chains—
cutting rail ties
and hauling them down off the hillside with that mule.

A lifetime later,
he said
“Watch this,”
fired up his chainsaw
and
cut a board
smooth and straight and clean
from a pine tree he had just brought down
shut off the chainsaw
and said
barely breathing hard
“Slicker ‘an a hound’s tooth.”