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.