Seth Brady Tucker
It is only by the absence of the word garage
that I know I will be that other person today,
the new man who tastes blood when he whispers
his incorrect words: car room, car house, oil room, oil
house, fender place, oil floor, truck place, auto
shed, auto floor, oil, oily, oil, oil, car, car oil, then
strangely, antelope skin? Sinew home? I can see
our big game, hung by coat hangers, feel the blade
slide between hide & hoof & meat. The word
belongs to someone, not this confused man
who bites his knuckles to feel the words, down until
he feels bone, the place where the word
garage used to be a blank gray space with just
the essence of what garage should & could
be: the word is a smell, the word is chapped
hands dry down the handle of a wrench, the word
is blood, the word is oil & blood, the word
is antelope, dressed carcass hanging by wire
where his father parked the car. He is still
trying, this other one, chewing around
his tongue until the chemistry gives
him leave to crawl away, lips torn by meaning,
his teeth that gnaw & gnaw for the stupid
ease of the right word, just so he won't appear
as lost & stunted & betrayed, excised,
like those organs so inexplicably taken.