Not a day old, I smelled the scent of diesel
on my father's fingertips—
the allure of pepperoni pizza
on both my parents' lips;
taught, my prayers were
secondary to Canadian bacon
with olives—I have been sketching
pitted fruits my whole life, truthfully,
I can’t draw much else.
His grey collar swooped in and out
from long distances to set routes twirling
on and along to mid-mgmt;
my kittens grew into cats.
On weekends, fumes tickled,
enveloping him, I, with the whir of snake
belts. In the lot, oil
spots framed my olfactory
tastes. Have you ever lingered
adjacent to diesel
wet from a summer rain?
Let the burn seep into the nostrils—
grease in notes tread the crust—
rumbles of hounds leave imprints—
no green peppers, please.
I, too, don the collar, grey
weaving through the same city streets—
squinting as my father once did
against the setting bulbs. Both
of us in transit to another
lot, but not before
learning to pop an air-
brake and have a Marlboro Light.