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 his old V-8