Re-assembly Required

(after Nathan Baker)

Wooden anomalies

inhabit

a Berlin studio:

pieces of Ikea Stefan

chairscape stretch-

ed

in various asana:

pieces you thought fixed flex,

loosening tight musculature into

camel, dog, bakasana,

garudasana.

Legs and seats push giraffe

snouts into an imagined

tree.

A never meets B.

The art of acceptance:

making from what arrives

a jubilant menagerie.

This boy is neither Karl

nor Erik. He did not

arrive flat-packed.

Or his assembly has involved

errata, re-

imagining.

He will never look like any other:

will never be so plain.

The matching set of six

dining chairs

gathered around matching table,

the old block

is not an apposite metaphor.

There is not enough stretch

or break: re-invention’s

pull-and-risk where

beauty collects in the odd

angle: shows its face

in halls of the strange where

there are always rooms

to imagine.