The First Anthropology Class You Taught Was Next to the Auto Shop

You thieve like breathing.
You thieve for the joy of it,
For the fun of hotwiring
What someone left in the lot

And riding it around
To try it on for size.
But you know it’s not yours.
You’re clear on that.

It’s stranger when you’re not,
In fact, taking something
For a spin that caught your eye,
When you’re just working hard,

Banging out your own sheet metal,
Tooling your own replacement parts,
And then you get disoriented,
Dizzy around the shop.

What you’re making echoes
Something racing in your head,
Something racing like an engine
But without any obvious source.

Didn’t you already build this?
Wasn’t it half built by someone else?
There are racers in the shadows
Of whatever you’re remembering,

Like the ghosts of all you’ve taken
Come to carry you home,
Like souped-up hearses
And converted ambulances,

But then they fade out
To a roaring distance,
Then nothing much at all.
What was your metaphor?