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MIT
Poetry
OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE
David Thorburn
The instruction sheet for the Papco Flaring Tool
fits in your palm when folded and opens
to three inches by four and a half,
both sides densely printed.
It is protected in a plastic sleeve that's yellow now
and hard enough to cut your finger tips.
Two machinist's drawings and 304 words
name its parts -- including Body, Lever, Strap,
Strap Bushing, Eccentric Adjusting Screw,
Clamp Yoke, Indexing Ball, Cone Dowel Pin --
and explain the working of this plumber's hand-tool,
how the compression screw and swivel cone swing aside for clear
sighting, the hexagon clamp expanding or contracting
on calibrated gears that turn precisely after seventy years.
Papco Forge and Foundry, Dayton, Ohio,
machined the instrument between the two World Wars
and produced this tiny, illustrated bible
which lauds one virtue of the tool,
its ability to close-flare very short lengths of tubing,
as "of supreme importance to refrigeration men."
-- for Arthur Mattuck
David Thorburn is Professor of Literature and Director of the Communications Forum at MIT.
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