Country Garage
Those small country garages, no more
Than two bays. God was the mechanic
Handsome when he was younger,
Women who bring their cars in to him
Because of something, their husbands
Say, they did wrong, say to themselves
As they drive away. This was before
The cigarettes and the divorces.
Sonless himself, he employs two boys
Who’ve been trying for years to get GEDs.
Trying might be the wrong word.
His wife works the phone in the office,
Papers pinned by parts. In summer,
Strips of fly paper torque down
From the ceiling tiles, blackening
With bodies, while in winter a space
Heater blasts away at her feet.
Most days it’s a few oil changes,
Or someone brings a car in that
Has no business being on the road.
I got an idea, the mechanic likes to say.
Take that shovel there, go out back,
Dig a hole, and throw your money in it.
Save me some time. But of course
He lifts it up, goes in under its weird
Firmament. The man can fix anything.
One day, an unfamiliar car putters in.
Out of state plates. A girl on her way
To college, garbage bags of clothes
Pressed like the faces rescue divers see
Pressed strenuously against the windows.
She heard something on the highway,
Took the first exit, drove around town
Until she found the garage.
She’s beautiful (she has to be
For the sake of the poem) and upset,
Which makes her more beautiful.
Her presence abashes the boys.
They clean up their crude language,
Turn demur, show her to the office,
Where she’s offered a cup of coffee.
She picks up a magazine - Field
& Stream. Heads of dead bucks wrenched
In such a way that you can see their racks.
Meanwhile, they're raising her car up,
Along with the weight of all the things
That matter enough to her to bring
To wherever it is she is going,
A place the boys can only imagine,
A place that, long after they’ve fixed her
Car and sent her back on her way west,
They will never cease imagining.
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Perfection!