The Bolt

The Bolt -for Ann When, in the spirit ofpioneering, you loosened yourself from the machinery of the world, did you mean to get lodged in my bald, left rear Firestone, or was it just a crazy gamble that didn't pay off? I can imagine the constant rumble, the fear of a tumor from the exhaust, the heat. It can make you sit at the kitchen table and strike matches till midnight. Now, pocked and mottled as the surface of the moon, you know liberty, too, is difficult, an obligation to turn your face toward the sun or swagger a little. Look, you're talking to a guy who believes in angels, who marveled today at the mechanic's story of a wrench extracted from a tractor tire. He said some things you just can't figure out. And you, a three-eighths inch, fine thread bolt, square head propped in my palm, whatever you freed yourselffrom is rattling through neighborhoods of dogs and pothole streets, or is broken down completely, resting in the shade beside a house with blue shutters. Will Farmer University ofNebraska-Lincoln 59 ...