Michael Macklin

Remembering Gravity

We lay in the grass
head and shoulders under the ’41 Mercury
freeing the rusted universal.
It could have been a Kodak moment
or a Norman Rockwell cover for the Post
but my father rested the crescent wrench
on the cross-member above his head.

At eleven I knew something about gravity,
had been wrong too many times,
felt his laugh cutting deeper
than a woodshed belt.
When oil and balpeen failed
on seized metal, he turned –
looking up –
a warning stopped
caught behind my teeth.

Even now his tiny scar
glints in the sun,
a miniature new moon
bloodless and puckered.
There is no repairing that.


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