By Jared Harél

My grandfather and I worked together
three summers straight stocking Flowmasters
and exhaust pipes at my father’s garage

while Dad darted between bays to deal with customers,
raise a lift, answer the phone.
Each memory’s been coated now

in dust and metal shavings, plus whatever song
was blaring on K-Rock. Over eighty,
my grandpa insisted on scaling the ladder

while I stood below, securing its base, hoisting
each tar-streaked pretzel of steel.
Of course, I could never feel at ease there:

a seasonal employee. The boss’s kid.
It was different for my grandfather, a bull
of a guy with navy suspenders and a laborer’s gait,

who could speak five languages,
yet rarely spoke. Everyone adored him, was in awe
of this man who worked for his son. Once,

during a lunch break, as a stream
of potential customers plowed down the turnpike,
one of the mechanics lit a smoke, pulled

up a seat, and told me my grandpa
was his goddamn hero. Then he grinned and said,
Your daddy ain’t shit next to him. What to make

of a memory like that? Of shipments flattened
by box-cutters and silence. To lift my head
and watch my grandpa work.

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Jared Harél’s poetry collection, Let Our Bodies Change the Subject (Nebraska, 2023) was selected by Kwame Dawes as the Winner of the Prairie Schooner Raz/Shumaker Book Prize. He has been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review and the William Matthews Prize from Asheville Poetry Review. He lives with his family in Westchester, New York. Jaredharel.com