My Father the Lonely Mechanic By Arvilla Fee

his cuticles bear crescent moons

of unwashable grease,

days spent beneath the hoods

of cars, digging into their bowels,

searching for complicated answers

to the knock, the ping, the whine,

living from paycheck-to-paycheck,

coming home late—too tired

to crack a joke or smile,

only enough energy left to crack

open a bottle and swig its contents

in long gulps down a throat

that buried its hum in the ribs

of my mother the day cancer

lifted her out of her body and left us

with a shell of all we’d ever been

Arvilla Fee teaches English and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/