Spent parts littered his garage floor:
camshaft, carburetor, and clamps.
Hoses bled out their old clots,
and molted belts snaked
the gray concrete
like Medusa on a bad hair day —
my dad was rebuilding
the car’s engine as he rebuilt
himself when things
went wrong like teeth
grinding gears and groins
to such unholy messes
not even Johnny Cash’s
Boy Named Sue, his hymn
and hero, could spit
penance on broken pieces.
I hugged my knees to a chest
still flat as checkers
and watched his repair ritual
from a corner of the workbench
surrounded by old Folger’s cans
filled with nuts and nails,
bolts and screws,
organized on shelves
custom made by a man
who valued custom work,
and waited for those valves
and veins buried in detergents
to rise and reverse themselves
like Lazarus exiting his tomb;
the engine’s resurrection
that proved he was
god of garages,
master of motors.
He torqued, twisted,
said a word or two
that more than once
left a taste of soap
on my teeth,
pushed, then pulled
as if life itself was on the line.
His crescent wrench
clattered on the concrete;
barber-striped grease wiped
from his cheek, he walked
down the drive and out of sight.
Nothing ever scared me
more than a bolt
immobilizing a man’s
proper order of things —
an engine crisis that silenced
everything but Cash
spilling from the speakers
of a GE clock radio
on a workbench shelf,
and I, so deep inside
that moment, have never
stopped running
from what can’t be fixed.
This poem was a semi-finalist in the Crab Creek Review poetry contest Fall 2016
