Inheritance

There was never any honeyed glow
bathing both of us
as we worked together,
never any Hollywood moment
of knowledge being passed on
father to son.
Instead, his impatience
would transmit itself to me
and the spanner would slip
again and again
until he’d seize it
from my nervous grasp
and finish the job alone.

Tonight, his hands
are the ones that tremble
on a pair of pliers
as he attempts to help me
while I crouch before him
repairing his wheelchair.

Finally done,
we put the tools away.
“That screwdriver cost me sixpence
sixty years ago,” he says,
“at Woolworths in Stornoway.”
Silently, I heft its weight,
feeling the warm, brown wood
of its well-worn grip
familiar and solid
in the palm of my hand.