No Satisfaction Copyright © Rob Lock 2011

The chest of drawers that I had hoped to renovate
so that it might become an heirloom in your keeping
had to be demolished to take in the car to the dump
when the drawer that had fallen apart after too long
storage in a container where it housed spiders and mice
and more couldn’t be put back together again by me
as the skills a man would need to do such a job
were no more mine than are workshop and bench and
though
I now have Cuprinol’s 5 Star Complete Wood Treatment
the sander the glue and a clamp the dexterity
still eludes me so with mallet and lump hammer
I unmitred, ungrooved and untongued it keeping
a Rolling Stones CD turned up high as I worked
and all I can offer on your birthday is modest
shop-bought furniture and I can’t even find a title
by the Stones for a throw away line on the tag.