Today's poem is by John Davis Jr.

Tractor Ghosts
       

Grandfather, I am driving your memory back to the shed.
Your tractor's power steering is shot, and navigation demands
a farmer's muscle to raise specter-gray clouds of soil.

Diesel smoke stays in this baggy work shirt, and it triggers
your lessons: solenoid, starter, alternator, filter, and all
the anatomy I'd need to keep your machine intact.

Like a staggering November deer, this mechanical animal
is wounded—dripping red liquid down every middle,
its bleating gears draw a DNA spiral of vultures.

Everything falters. Even with tools of lineage and legacy,
I cannot pour—I cannot keep—life inside it. To get enough
jump for juice, I charge the battery overnight and pray.

Stubborn, it will crank again, sensing the wrong spirit controls
its way. These unscarred fingers, these lineless eyes know city
currency, university books. They fail the stiff-turning wheel.

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Copyright © 2023 John Davis Jr. All rights reserved
from The Places That Hold
EastOver Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission