The Tinkerer Nearly Punches Through

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The Tinkerer Nearly Punches Through


He can’t manufacture it, 

bu twhen the mower’s up on blocks

and the bearings hammer out 


whole, and black cherry tobacco 

and brake grease slip into one another

like sweat-slicked lovers, and the bees 


drone drowsy round the clover hoping 

the part doesn’t fit, and not a monarch

but one of those little black ones 


touches down on the ratchet set  

as the neighbor looses rounds 

in the woods behind the house, 


something thick as pollen

settles, and he knows with a wrench

the film would fall away 


and he’d wake from the dream 

no one told him he was 

having, rip right into


a stillness total as the air-

conditioning he forgot was on

suddenly clicking off.


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