The Engine That Quit
did it without any show —
no backfire, no smoke, no dramatic glow —
it just stopped caring one unremarkable morning
and sat in the driveway, no warning, no warning.
The man who owned the engine stepped out and turned the key —
got the click, the half-catch, then the hollow nothing —
the engine refusing to catch, to engage —
and a man without his engine turns a quiet page.
The engine that quit, the engine that quit —
it ran for forty years and now it’s done with it,
the engine that quit in the driveway of the day —
the engine that quit and the man who drove away.
He tried the usual remedies when engines turn defiant —
the battery, the cables, the modern diagnostic,
but the problem was simpler than the diagnostics revealed:
the engine was simply over, finally finished with the field.
Over is a word for a certain kind of done —
not shattered, not repairable, just burned its final run —
the engine quit in the way that things do quit
when they’ve been running long enough to have their say
and split.
He caught the bus to work and found the bus accommodating —
it runs on fuel that isn’t his, does its own navigating,
no requirement to provide the push from deep inside,
just climb aboard, climb off, and let someone else drive.
The bus is not the engine and the engine was the thing —
but the bus gets a man to work,
gets him home when evening rings —
and the man without his engine finds the bus sufficient
for the quiet purposes of life, efficient and dependent.
The engine in the driveway rusts in its quiet position —
he throws a tarp over it to spare the neighbors’ vision,
to guard the machine’s condition from their curious discussion
about the state of things declined and their quiet accusation.
Maybe someday he’ll fix it or maybe he’ll sell the parts —
or maybe let it sit beneath the tarp while autumn starts
its slow accumulation, winter following after —
the engine on vacation, its comfortable laughter.
The metaphor is not lost on him — he’s aware of the decline —
but awareness and the fixing are two different things and time
has taught him that he knows the engine
and the tarp and what they mean
and still takes the bus each morning through the ordinary routine.
Some engines quit and get replaced with shinier editions —
some engines quit and the driver finds a different mission —
and the mission turns out workable, the work turns out enough,
a man living adequately without his engine, life gone soft.
The engine that quit doesn’t miss the road, he’s fairly certain —
the engine has settled into something like a comfortable curtain
of the stillness, the not-running, the covered and the cold —
and the man and the engine share the same low-burning will.
The bus comes at seven-fifteen, reliable as rust —
the man at the stop with his coffee and his trust
in the adequate, the scheduled, the perpetually enough —
the engine that quit, and the man who found the other stuff.
The bus passengers are each their own peculiar archaeology —
the woman with the earbuds, the man whose face reads apology,
the kid who’s barely conscious, running on whatever’s left —
all riding on other people’s engines, their own fatigue beached.
He finds the bus companionable in its own unremarkable way —
the shared agreement of the adequate at the start of day,
the silent solidarity of those whose engines also died —
the engine that quit, and the bus, and the quiet ride.
The bus goes where the bus goes
and the man goes where the bus goes —
and the going is the going and the current always flows
through the same stops, the same schedule,
the same predictable route —
and the engine that quit is fine,
the engine made its peace, no doubt.