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Prairie Schooner 78.1 (2004) 84-85



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The Dismantling of Parts

Lisa D. Chavez


What I took when I left: a socket
set and a map of his days - familiar
routes I traveled in my mind. I'd picture him

leaning over his kitchen table - scarred
formica veiled in newsprint. Smoke
from a cigarette wreathing his face,

he'd squint into the carburetor
he'd just torn-apart. A spray can
of solvent and an open Pabst

Blue Ribbon warming by his chair.
Six o'clock. He'd get up. Sigh.
Grab an edge of newspaper, slide

the carb aside. Rub the back
of his neck, leaving smudged prints
in the place I used to tease with teeth

and tongue. Gut a chile, seeds
detached from flesh with a flick
of the knife. Jalapeno and a splash

of soy, swirled in a cup. He'd key
open a can of smoked oysters. Tweeze
them out with chopsticks, dip them [End Page 84]

in the sauce. Maybe as he ate,
he'd stare at the poem I wrote, still
tacked to the wall. Words to caress

what hands no longer touch.
My photo there too, windblown
hair curtaining my face, the way time

and distance obscures his now.
Years have passed, old lives traded in
on new. Only memory remains:

the slippage and glide of his skin
on mine, his body an old addiction
I succumb to in dreams. Yet I see

his hands still: fingers oil-stained
and blunt, nimble with calipers
and springs. Intelligent fingers, intimate

with the intricate ways of machinery,
the dismantling of parts. Hands
that broke me down too, slid me

into pieces, nipple and cunt. I rose
breathless beneath him, dispersing
like ether sprayed on oiled metal,

an element of air.






Lisa D. Chavez is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her latest books are Destruction Bay (West End P) and In An Angry Season (U of Arizona P). Raised in Alaska, her first publication in Prairie Schooner was in our special issue: Writing from Alaska. She now lives in New Mexico.

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