I rarely see you anymore, even bikes
are going gearless, along with the gear-
grease wiped on jeans like forever stamps.
I miss the grease, no,
I miss the confidence that once again
the damn van will run.
 
Some bubblegum, a rubber band; rub
the dirty spark plugs on your pants, crawl
under the block, attitude-back the stripped
bolt, yank it out like a tooth. Rust flakes
drift down like dried blood.
Gears and grease
 
in the mnemic suitcase we carry,
still 19 and hungry, every part
of the one artichoke between us
consumed, still hungry, stirring
the morning’s ashes,
we’re walking on air like ashes.
 
The van did break
and the tent collapsed.
And weren’t we smooth
slipping from first to third
even without a clutch?
A continuum, we imagined;
 
in the inwardness,
in the eye of things,
we were quiet so as to know it.
We listened to nothing there
and prepared.

© by Dawn McGuire.
Used here with the author’s permission.