Like My Father

Like My Father

I will spill my bag of allen wrenches
on the garage floor, remain even
as the mowed lawn. My father
smiles when he’s coated
in oil. Cars remind him
there’s always something
to be fixed. He chooses
not to replace what he can
resurrect. I’ve seen him
swim in motor oil, turning
his drawn-out body
to coat every scar
and knotted muscle.
Silence, he’s taught me,
is the ultimate surrender
to the realities of love. 
Slim aluminum sheets,
we are all bent
with desire,
but we can still be
fixed by the quick
mallet of gravity.
Science is spiritually
significant: There is always
a ritual to answer to. Romance
is a question of humor,
grace. His father pulled
a hamstring trying to race him.
Humility is an embrace of the red
oil that flows out of us all. In the end,
I will hold his soldering iron against
the empty room, fuse my breath to his
absence. I will press my forehead into
every oil stain on the concrete floor.