Matthew Kosinski

Butch Ferrari (And Michael was a Trucker)

And of course the mechanic’s name
is Butch Ferrari. He’s built and bearded
like a degenerative Father Christmas.

My grandfather takes me into the garage.
He’s asking for beer.
He’s looking for a Corvette which used
to be where the cardboard boxes and slit trash bags
and steely indefinable artifacts are forming a collage,
now, here, in the garage where the Frigidaire’s gone rusted shut

as Frigidaires are prone to do
in periods of long disuse.

The way Butch talks to him.
The way Butch hobbles
and stops to hold his right knee
while sucking air in through
his ruined teeth.
And here the Frigidaire’s gone rusted shut

as Frigidaires are prone to do
in periods of long disuse.

They used to bury whispering men in Lakewood.
There was this one time when my grandfather
didn’t know he was transporting someone’s personal arsenal.
There was this other time my grandmother danced
with a murderer who was an agreeable man, by all accounts.
They don’t keep beer in the garage anymore
because the Frigidaire’s gone rusted shut

as Frigidaires are prone to do
in periods of long disuse.


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