“The Good Samaritan,” oil on canvas, by Aimé Morot, 1880.
Daily walk, Johnston subdivision, August 27, 97°
I turn the corner, and see them. She leans against
the passenger side fender. He is a pair of legs sticking out
between the headlights, a voice barking: “Don’t
rock the car.”
Sweet Saint Christoper, he is going to get himself killed.
Who tries to put a jack under an axle?
I walk by, stop, head back. I tell the legs:
“The jack doesn’t go there.” He emerges from under
the car, mid 70s, white tee-shirt (I assume his dress shirt
is safe). “Let me help,” I say.
Dear Thomas of Aquinas, spare me. Where to put
the jack is on the jack, words plus pictogram
for the verbally challenged.
I retrieve the jack, install it in its place and start cranking.
The flat begins to levitate. Praise to me until the car
lurches forward and the jack twists out of its home.
I ask: “Did you set the parking brake?” He: “I put it in park.”
A pox on you, Buddha and your melon-headed
apostates, that no one believes in the binary,
the yes or no model, anymore.
I open the door, fumble for the parking brake
and squash the pedal down. I uncrank then crank.
Sweat cascades from my crown—creeks, rivers,
pooling on the asphalt.
How long, dear Darwin til something stumbles
out of this petri dish of my brine and H2O?
Mary Madeline from across the street comes
out of her house, a chair for the wife, water
all around. Blessed are those blessed
with refrigeration, folding chairs.
I pull the tire off, put the donut on. I feel
a hovering above me.
Mercy, Saint Veronica, mercy. Does my labor
not suffice? Must I now allow him to help? Must I
scissor the cardboard cut-out of his competence?
I let him screw the nuts on. Fitting, I think.
I uncrank the jack, tighten the lugs, tell them:
“Not sure how much air is in the donut. Don’t
drive far.”
They gather beyond the hood, their hands held out,
heads bent, knuckles almost touching.
Saint John, almsgiver, you of beard that reaches
sternum, be gone, be scarce, feel that keel of hair
in the wind.
When he tries to palm me the loot, the wad falls
to grass. I pick it up, put it in his hand, say:
“Put in the plate on Sunday,” then take off
back into my walk, my world of nattering
squirrels, crows picking at carcasses,
the squish of sneaker-sole on hot concrete.
James Wyshynski is a former editor of the Black Warrior Review. His poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Terminus, River Styx, Stoneboat, Interim, and elsewhere. He currently lives and works in Marietta, Georgia.
