"Oil Change" a poem by Miranda
An original poem by thepoetmiranda
Intro
Here’s another poem from my Car Guy Girl manuscript. This poem was originally published in This Land Press’s now defunct arts quarterly under my [deadname].
My selection process for which original poems I share on this website and when isn’t exactly organized. It’s generally a matter of which one I feel like sharing when I get to the day I’ve decided is my share an original poem day. My public domain poetry project follows stricter guidelines that I’ve set up for myself.
When I flip through my older poems (10+ years old), I find myself reading and rereading them with my trans identity in mind (I came out almost 1 1/2 years ago). That’s not some kind of attempt at assigning certain poems transness that isn’t there, but there are some in which that aspect of myself is evident in retrospect.
I can see themes in this poem that hit me in that spot, but I think/hope that this poem does more than that.
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Reminder for the other car girls out there: a few calluses from working on your shitbox or project car doesn’t make you any less of a woman.
Drive safe. Read poems dangerously.
💜Miranda📚
Oil Change
Oil filters into fingertips and under my nails,
stains my calluses, clothes, driveway.
Now it’s five thousand miles (millions of years) old,
drained into a tub I’ll take to the disposal downtown
where it still doesn’t cease its pouring, dripping, leaking.
It follows me like the scent of a drugstore cologne.
Even when I pour five new quarts over the old
cylinder heads, the used oil remains with me,
shrugging off shower and scrub–coarse brush
that rubs my skin raw but cannot erase the stain.