ryan quinn flanagan | lube and filter

Lube and Filter

I remember walking downtown
past this car place once
with some woman
and she saw the mechanics
in their dirty overalls
sharing a smoke
by the door on the chain,
faces faux Nubian
black
with grease,
their green tag
steel toes
hacked away at
like some dangling
slaughterhouse
heavy,
and I remember what she said,
in that voice
that haughty prep school
never worked a day in her life
voice:
don’t they have any
shame?


She said it
just like that.


With all that hate.


And it was heartbreaking.


To see those men –
to have been those
men –
as the cars
behind them
(mounted on
lifts)
sat gynaecologically
exposed


and
leaking.

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