of poets and mechanics

these women with their academic tone
and publishing credentials
and every syllable purposefully humbled
dress all deliberate and proper
tell that same story about
their oldest son and one bad decision
talk about their second trip to Greece
and the lovely hotel with the view
that their dead husband hated

but never fought a war
and made it feel like heaven
all dusty and silent and well lit
never slept on a floor all creaking
with the heavy breaths of inaudible poetry

my mechanic has tattoos that smear and bleed into one another all indistinguishable/owns four shirts all oil stained and torn like truths/named his daughter dharma/tells detailed stories of freight trains and hobo rolls that may not have existed but feel like concrete

as he perches on the hood of the '72 duster because he always seems ready to move