Steel Sang Once

 

Steel Sang Once
You said the steel was singing
on that cracked two-lane blacktop,
tar soft under noon glare,
hands black with summer grease,
mind hotter than hissing chrome.
Every bolt held rust-wet secrets,
every rattle a warning code—
what broke first: the engine,
or the fraying wire between us?Teach me the knife and the question,
how to split this scorched world open.
What’s a name, what’s the pulse beneath?
What’s the map, what’s the hammering heart?
If repair and ruin share a hairline crack,
show me where it starts to bleed.
Cut me clean back to the spark.You traced ghosts on the atlas,
finger shaking over faded lines,
said you’d lost yourself in thinking,
shadow left under old porch light.
Chasing echoes through empty chairs,
I watched your reflection dissolve
in the red taillight glow of your stare.Teach me the knife and the question,
how to split this scorched world open.
What’s a problem, what’s the living thing
that refuses every chart we drew?
If control and caring share a backroad,
brand it into my skin.
Cut me clean back to the spark.We broke down past the shot-up county sign.
You laughed dry, said “Maybe that’s fine—
some things aren’t built to run forever.”
Then the wrench, still warm from your grip,
passed like a blackened heirloom:
“Find the beauty in the fix,
or the fire eats you through.”Teach me the knife and the question,
how to split this scorched world open.
What’s an answer, what’s obsession?
What’s wisdom scraped to bright steel,
what’s dark—the carbon on the rag?
If grace and grieving braid one road,
I’ll ride it blind through moonlit gravel.
Cut me clean back to the spark.