What the Workbench Keeps

The agent called. Monday is the hard line.

Everything in the house is boxed and labeled,

but the garage still smells like him—

cold grease, old gasoline, and the damp weight of winter.

I kicked a pile of rags by the workbench.

They’re stiff as cardboard, stained with black circles

where he wiped the dipstick a thousand times.

I clicked the knob on the Sears radio.

The speaker crackled, then a woman’s voice

started reading the five-day forecast for a city

he isn’t in anymore.

Rain on Tuesday. High of fifty-four.