Victorian Auto Shop

To the girl sitting across from me in my literary theory class:
“I like you.”
I like the way you have two subtle streaks of color—one black, one pink,
casually struck across your mahogany hair.
I like the way your grey scarf is tossed around your neck like a salad.
I like to think that you are from New England somewhere,
from a colonial house with white pillars and thick red birch trees out front.

I like to imagine that you are perfect
But I can see in your face that you, are like me
I can see those tire streaks across your face.

I imagine you in your youth
Riding a black tricycle cascading through the backyard like a circus
Like an acrobat pretending to be a motorcycle cage rider
You had so many lights on you
I thought of a chandelier walking a tightrope
You were alive—legs pumping, knees flowing in a summer dress.

What happened to your smile?
What happened to your tricycle?
Why does your white house now look like a Victorian auto shop, the white
picket fence stained with motor oil?

I can see those tires spinning
bald eagle, spinning like an ice skating rink
You were a tire shop taking on, and taking off, different wheels like a
grease monkey shopping trip.
Trying to find some tread

Sick of never having a grip
Sick of spinning out
Sick of the way those appendages never gripped beneath
Sick of all the car crashes you went through
Sick of all the pills you popped to come to life

You opened up tire shops across the nation
Wyoming, Colorado, New York, Oregon
You bought tire jacks and monkey wrenches
You were never successful

Your business was called Tired Tires
Not because it was a trite alliteration
but because it was true
Because those inner tubes inside of you were deflated and your air pumps were broken.

I wish I could carve some tread into you
but I am bald too
And stopped carving a while ago.