Where Dying Engines Bled
after Jim Cory
I was born in the parlor of a tarpaper farmhouse.
We laid a rocking chair over the stain. Dad patched up rustbuckets.
Some came undone at the seams. Clean, like in manuals.
Some by blowtorch or reciprocating saw.
I had a muscle car. Rusty pieces of. It’d rattle and purr
and sweat, if ya fingered the carburetor right.
My only neighbor had a bigger beard than me. Tattoos for every communist
he killed.
So three. Taught me to pick a fiddle. I forgot.
There were always gunshots. Hunters or drunken hicks. I never killed nothing.
Fished the shit crick and flew a truck with no doors. I used to whoop.
My dog never wore no collar, never bathed. He followed me everywhere.
Ran miles after the bus. Coyotes run’d him off.
I’d never worn shoes til I was six years old.
In fall the leaves were knee deep and red. I wallowed in them.
| Jacob Mays |
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