Dave Bonta looks at an ordinary tool and keeps changing what it is. First the hammer is a kind of perfect androgyne, a being that is neither male nor female, set against an older world where angels were all male. Then it is a sad, slightly comic object hanging on a pegboard, so sleek it seems built for speed, though it goes nowhere. The speaker calls it "poor thing," and that tenderness sets the tone.
The poem then turns the claw into a pair of legs that can "give birth to nails," which makes the hammer both a maker and a mother. Next the legs become rails that fail to run parallel and meet too soon. The final image is the funniest and the saddest: a stuck train, and a hammer hopping on one flat foot. The mood is playful and affectionate, with a quiet note of pity for something full of potential that can't quite get moving.