The taste of sawdust is heavy in the air,
mixed with sweat, grease and oil.
The polishing rag sits abandoned where it fell
smack in the middle of the half-gleaming hood
of the 1939 cherry red Ford de Soto
cut and chopped and remixed into the precide hot rod
that the coolest kid in school had driven to prom
twenty-odd years ago.

He stands in the door of his garage
and looks out at suburbia
and wonders where the hell his son is
this late on a goddamn school night
and wonders briefly if maybe just maybe
his son has learned some important lesson
that he himself somehow missed
along the way.