mechanics’ beach

they stand facing each other from four directions. wrecks of autos resemble their notions of self. they walk. moving their hands and arms. not laughing much. two are naked except for cut-offs. the other two are shirted, with long trousers. one sports a billed cap. the other shirted one wears dark glasses around a smooth tan face, which makes him seem almost beach naked. in late Arizona sun, they all have a beach look about them. now and then, one of them will cut a look toward my house. i doubt they’re thinking of me. but they must know the score. how they stand surf-edge of their own fantasies, fears about who they are, still too young to be sure what it means to have certain ideas tug at their flies. it’s underground land monsters they worry about. as if they’d run take a swift deep dive to get away from one word my kind could open them up with to the want they sweat may be deep down in. i doubt they’re so vulnerable. yet even the most macho young male might just wish once he could hold a friend close to him, not for sex, but for brother belonging, feeling in flesh a beat of steep dark wings not even god could make a heaven larger than. but, no. it’s forbidden. it would mean what it wouldn’t mean. they daren’t risk it. not even with a dozen dazing beers. they do to broken unresisting motors earnestly, caring, with strong wrists and tender fingers, what they could never set themselves free to do, lovingly, with each other