Simple Machines

Sometimes we wonder what unfailing meanswhen nothing's warrantied to last. Our carbreaks down among the clay-red hills, ravinesunmarked: Nowhere, New Mexico. We're farfrom cities that we know. It takes three daysto tow our brokenness across the state,driving half-speed and braking for delays,the detours up ahead. I navigate.You drive. I tell you, I want clean and bright,to trade in rattling and rubberneckfor speed or just fidelity. The lightis leaking from the sky, our trip a wreck.You say, repairing engines is an art—all these small devices split apart.

All these small devices. Split apartthey're only brackets, nails, slight things that turn,a pair of arms. You unscrew the heartof the garage door opener to learnwhy suddenly it stopped, although the trackis slick, the censors undisturbed—they blinktheir ruby lights at us. I'm standing backto watch the household surgery. You thinkabout the motor's hurt before you reachinside, your fingers on a wire vein.The door resumes its shutting with a screech.Healed, for now. There's still a length of chainleft out of place, gears clacked to smithereens,these parts unfixable, these sad machines.

These parts unfixable, these sad machinesare what we call our marriages. A friend explains she's trapped—her subway car careensthrough stations, hurls around a bend,the tunnels flickering—and all she wantsis to find the bright red handle, yank the brake.If love's a train, then this is her response.To push a button for escape. To takea staircase up and out. But every day,she runs inside before the doors slide shut.There's chewing gum beneath her seat, a sprayof neon scribbles on the glass. So what?She knows the trains have nothing to impart.Now grinding to a stop, they will not start.

Now grinding to a stop, they will not start—our bodies mechanized to movement stallwhen temperatures go hot. If we were smart,we'd know, like parts the factories recall,we're busted stuff. We are the idling ofdesire. An expert says to check the vents.An expert says the lines are blocked and lovea fuel that can't pump through—it's not immense,the glitch, but something tiny in the tank.I swap our switches out. I test our volts,replace our needle jets and plugs. You crankthe shaft. We feel the old, familiar joltsof longing there, before we lose our juiceagain. The rusted couplings have no use.

Again, the rusted couplings have no use.There's always something broken in this dump.Last week, the sink began to leak abuseacross the floor. The week before, a pumpgave up inside the fridge, a toilet clogspat fury everywhere, the dryer fried.The clocks, both digital and analog,quit counting down the time. The doorbell died.I watch you kneel, attempting to repairthe stove, which is the only thing not redwith anger here. Or else you dim the glareof lights above, adjust a shower head that spurts its grievances in steady streams,the fasteners dismantled at their seams.

The fasteners dismantled at their seamsare just the first of what we call divorces.There is the cracking of concrete, crossbeamsbuckling. All year, destructive forcesappear to rule the structures we have built—a family friend who calls to say he's throughwith fixing everything. The walls will tilt,he says, no matter what I do. It's truecollapse is inexplicable and near,a roof detaching from a house, as thougha god has pulled a corner up to peerinside. A picture window breaks. We knowpeculiar shatterings can reproduce,the metal splines unmating, coming loose.

The metal splines unmating, coming loose,mean every junkyard chopper can be saved.The tank that's sprayed in custom flames of pucecan be stripped down to naked steel, engravedwith devils, angel-wings. No frame too bent.No handlebar too twisted to restore...