Oil Change

by Randall Weiss

02/08/2016

Oil filters into fingertips and under my nails,

stains my callouses, clothes, driveway.

 

Now it’s five thousand miles (millions of years) old,

drained into a tub I’ll take to the disposal downtown

 

where it still won’t cease its pouring, dripping, leaking.

It follows me like the scent of a drugstore cologne,

 

shrugging off shower and scrub, course brush

that rubs my skin raw but cannot erase the stain.

 

Even when I pour five new quarts over the old

cylinder heads, the used oil remains with me.


Originally published in This Land: Winter 2016