My father fixed cars that spilled oil all over the garage floor

Because he was a mechanic and showed as much by filling old cars with life.

He told me I should work hard  for whatever I get. That means he was an optimist.

But he’d say it because he believed in the

system. I am ashamed of optimists

with their naive view on the world,

and confounded by the system. I thank the system for my education in spite

of the price.

These words: I love my father. I love men

who work on cars as loud as their daughters. By the time the gears

begin to turn, awakened, the men who tend them

are already at work. Red. I’ll never know who started the lies about my people,

but I’d love to wake him up

at dusk in the nighttime, toss him in a car, and drive him under the stars

past every workplace in America to see all the people with my same features and

brown skin like me,

working to earn a living. A car? A girl

to watch the cat? Some gas in the tank? We’d keep the wheels turning.