A Garage Reflection

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On Cleaning a Garage

A life well-lived is a Taylor guitar,
Dented and scratched from mistimed turns
In corner bars
On seedy city streets,
With errant stomping feet
And cigarillo burns
From drunken Thursday-nighters;
A faded neck from sweaty hands
Playing thread-bare strings
That buzz and ring in a too-loud downtown band.

A race well-run is an old Toyota truck
With chipping paint and whining belts
And a drive-side window that’s stuck
Unless the blinker is on;
A truck that has intimately felt
The twists and turns of country roads,
The steady hum of the freeway’s song,
The silence of starry nighttime drives along
The empty parkway to home.

An annotated book with a story between the lines,
A wrinkled smile and crow-foot eyes,
A dented wedding ring -
The fullest lives are found in broken things.

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