In honour of my Dad’s birthday, I thought I’d post the one and only sestina I’ve ever written (coincidentally, it’s about him, go figgur!). -Cannonball
VULCANIZED (April 14, 04)
- adj : 1) treated by a chemical or physical process to improve its properties (hardness, strength, odour and elasticity). 2) a process as detrimental to lungs as it is beneficial to rubber in tire making.
My father is a man of rotating rubber,
sentenced to work by the shift.
Benefits and wages owed him by the tire
manage, at times, to cover the cost
of the fumes’ 26-year reign of respiratory
seniority – always worth sticking it out for in the end.
I never know when his days will end.
Arriving home from school, the hamper smells of rubber,
the hallway full of the sounds of his respirations,
meaning he is sleeping off the 12 to 8 shift
and dreaming of what a life of leisure might cost –
the provider’s life one of missed moments, working to retire
comfortably and support four children, who he knows will never tire
of asking for financial assistance, and will end
up back home because they will spend, heedless of cost.
He modifies the parental gripe to, “Am I made of rubber?” –
alluding to his disdain for money-grubbing and our nasty ability to shift
his thoughts back to the place responsible for his ragged respirations.
Never one to complain, but always one to make his respiratory,
back and other discomforts known, Dad will kick the tires –
our soccer practice enablers – at the end of a frustrating shift.
His clichéd refrain, concerning them being his end,
always accompanies his foot bouncing off the rubber.
This gives him an outlet so he doesn’t accost
the management, who would love to remove his pension costs,
and hospital bills for the treatment of his vulcanized respiratory
tract, a side-effect of inhaling as much rubber
as he helps put on the road in the form of tires.
His occupational frustration usually meets its steel-toed end
on the sidewall of one of his creations, allowing him to shift
into the headspace of home, and focus on us instead of his shift.
Monotony and repetition are often accompanied by mental and physical costs,
but Dad now tries to embrace each day so that it will not end
in frustration, and has adopted a new way to respire
that provides more flexible airways, so when he retires
he can relax in a pool his health bought, made of dissimilar rubber.
At the end of his last shift
I hope all that rubber does not exact a human cost
and end his respirations, as one would deflate a tire.
