In my hands nails bent,
threads stripped,
saws wobbled,
drills went walking
On my back with my father
under a broken car
hours after most people slept,
I thought of the girl I loved
and kept burning his ear lobe
with the extension light
“Dammit,“ he howled,
“if you’re mooning over women,
they don’t give out that much,
and besides….” he swore,
feeling for a wrench across cold cement,
“it’s highly overrated”
He never explained
the workings of things,
why our gears never meshed,
why whatever I tried to do
was never plum
Why his love had to be
as complicated as the engine
of an old V-8
