The Sigh of a Man

camping in the back seat of my boyfriend’s car.

he’s trying to explain engines to me:

clutch piston crankshaft axle pressure               explosion

he creases his forehead and i am a toddler.

we are four feet away from the hood

and my shoulders are sore from hunching

in our makeshift bed. he’s been too quiet

since i don’t get the transition from piston

to crankshaft. palms swish the sleeping bag.

i’m sorry i don’t get engines,

i’m actually a really smart girl—

i can turn the night sky into a dashboard.

we peer upside down out the window

at the faint milky way and the airplanes

are like radio dials. he breaks the image

to shove his ribcage between

the two front seats, rifling

through the glove compartment. he tosses

the mitsubishi manual in my lap. i lay into

the crook of my elbow and he stoops over me:

it’s metal and plastic, it has nothing

to do with hot balls of gas in the sky.

i’ve done it again: taken something beautiful

like the graceful ink swoops of an engine schematic

and turned it into something mushy like moon cheese.

we are in a metal box powered by gas

and outside our little metal box burn

one million little balls free from their boxes.

sleeping bag to my ear like a conch

but there is no sound of the ocean,

only the clunk of an engine and the sigh

of a man who doesn’t know he’s angry yet:

pressure              explosion