Paths from The First Car
Half-lit by cars, we flick cigarettes
in the parking lot. You point to spokes
& spin them, open the hood, & I see
my father there. Shoulder chipped memory.
You turned the engine on: Turbocharge,
you say. O’Reilly’s. Back to a slick floored
garage. We’re under the car passing tools
as father & son. He’d say it takes a little
grease & elbow. We keep wiping the hood down.
He tells me to hand him the tray.
Oil pools between us. We keep standing there,
ash & beer swished in our mouths, waiting
to spit under the moon’s head. Halogen
glow of the driveway, I remember what
I once was—like a moth drawn to my father’s breath.
Some symphony of silence between us. We shared
blood. Small boy me looked & wondered—what does it take
to jump start the drive, to have fingers so callous
they still know how to hug tight to the shoulder
of a road so familiar, it hurts. This hometown thorn.
How do I stay the course & follow the right instruction?
Check your fluids, he’d say. Check the tire pressure, he’d tap.
Thud. Tension. At any moment, a blowout. A swerve off
the ready-made path. I wrestle with doing what’s right often:
following direction. Mine. Some desire to know the machine.
Its torque & fuel. Its every dent, a cause for doubt.
I’m not the passenger anymore. You asked me
what do I know about engines?
I think of the one I drive—this traveled body.
How I taught myself which bolts to tighten
so I don’t sit sobbing when the tires
go loose & question
where did I go wrong?
