FLAT TIRE

 

FLAT TIRE

When your daughter gets a flat tire

at 10:30 on a Monday night

you get to grab a flashlight

and go out and press

your face into the pavement

into little pieces of gravel

and smell that cold pavement smell.

You thought you'd teach her to change

a flat but you never did

you send her home

with her mother in the other car

without the flat.

You fumble in the dark

with the untested jack

cranking your Japanese SUV into

the air by a few inches

pull the flat off the lugs

roll it onto the ground

and struggle

to align the good one

and twist the nuts on as tight

as possible with your hands

"Always use your hands before

you use a tool," your eighth grade Shop teacher

once said.

Two days later

you're still cleaning road grit

from the grooves of your fingers

which remind you

of the treads of tires.