Celia Bland
The Mechanics of Love
They die with me inside.
On Curly Corners Road, one did that
and I hailed down a Cadillac – two
afro-ed-like-marigolds men
who didn’t say boo.
“Let’s just keep going,”
I whispered
as they gave me a ride
into town.
But I broke down again.
This one here won’t start
with a key.
I stick a screwdriver
into it’s compressor.
That one needs its
clutch popped
so sweet; and that other
catches when two
red wires cross,
when a ballpoint
is stuck so that air
seeps a valve, or either
I got to push,
fingers splayed over the plugs
and coax,
“Come on baby!”
Eureka!
I nurse with pats of gas, gentle
downshifts, but all the time
I keep
sputtering out:
sad clicks
harsh metallic gasps.
Chalk Line For Our Catechism
I. Mathematics
7 was the woman dangerous to 6, even
cannibalistic. She would flatten
his belly into her own brainy linearity.
Only 8, mild-mannered, proportionate
top to bottom, could computer a peace
between them. 7 fell forward
along the number line, searching
with tentacular desire;
odd, odd.
I write her now with a bar across
her middle – a collar, a table
where she sits with a latte
watching lovers on their cell phones:
flat top 5, receptacle 4, and 9,
a sexy Sagittarius.