(for the team of Drain Time plumbers)

Luis behind the fridge,
Leo in the front bathroom,
each using a drill

that sings a distinct series
of notes, rising and falling
in mechanical melody.

“It’s the speeds changing,”
Luis says, but I hear it
as the plumbers’ song,

two tools harmonizing
as these experts labor deep
in the recesses that they’ve

cut into this old house,
carving out old pipe,
replacing it with new,

hooking me up, as the kids say,
in a whole new water way.
Brand spankin’ new pipes

will daily deliver the source
of life, the miracle of clean
water into mine,

others taking away
what’s no longer needed,
an ebb and flow I generally

take for granted. But now
when I turn the tap or flush
or water plants, I will

think of these young men
and their colleagues who,
over several days,

assembled hundreds of pipes
and elbow fittings, tee fittings,
couplings, adaptors and unions

like Tinker Toy rods and spools
underneath and inside this old beast
of a house, revamping its

arteries like the expert surgeons
they are, making what was old
magically new again.