Nakashima Joint

The splurge of amaranth in maple

tattoos the ribbony pale grains

with a Florida Purplewing so still and rigid

it might be trying to hide from predators.

Smoothing beneath the whistling handplane

the joint glasses over into a quiet narrative.

It hides the spot where the book matching

fails with decoration, tied not at the neck

but in the violin’s thin convex spine.

It is a disappointing innovation,

a determination to remedy imperfection

with an unexpected functioning decoration.

But Nakashima was not fixing fiddles.

He saw Husserl’s hopeful being deep

in furnishing material. And he preferred

the darker, sonorous walnut to maple.

He understood the kneading comfort of style.

Even the internments couldn’t stop him–

he merely deepened his knowledge and craft

from a master among his own people.

In those butterfly wings he fused

Japanese, Shaker, and the other unnamed–

the styles that creep in the darkness of familiarity.

The violet dust implodes from its mountain

filled with the being it objects.

His New Hope speaks outward from essence

against the terror of intention.

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Taylor Hagood is a writer currently living in south Florida whose publications include the biography/true crime, Stringbean: The Life and Murder of a Country Music Legend, and fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in such journals as A-Minor Magazine, Cold Mountain Review, and The Rumpus.