Standard Maintenance

I thought I’d be a man who owned a truck

and never had to rely on a streak of luck.

But at two in the morning the pipes began to wail

like a ghost or a dog or a rusted-out nail.

I knelt in my boxers on the cold tile floor

while the heat died away behind the bedroom door.

Now I stand in the aisle under lights far too bright

with the grease in my knuckles from the fight in the night.

The radiator key is a small, heavy cost

for the version of myself I’ve definitely lost.