Gas Station Blues
I drove by the abandoned station
with X’s for eyes on the gas pumps
and fast food chicken nugget flavored water scents
parading up and down the scarred asphalt.
Car tires whir
and patrons accidentally skip their shoulda been
toll change out the window
and let summer seep into their rusted boxcars
as people launch fireworks and bullets
at ungodly hours.
***
2
Drive Up
Coffee shop loitering regulars
trot by the pond behind the drive-up,
the alley reeking like a
high school cigarette bathroom
tarnished with dry paper towel ink
and cardboard thoughts
with scribbled streak scrawl
of study hall poetry.
***
3
Heart/Head/Everything/No Bread.
My heart dilates my eyes
proceeding to pencil sharpen
my tap-dancing fingers
as his leather coat paper airplane glides
and whirs the revolving door
like the kickback of a chicken’s head
flying off for target practice,
or a can in No Man’s Land
shot to hell like a wandering baseball
just eyein’ your jackhole of a neighbor’s
front window
and the rubber-band drops into my system
giving me some sort of
rollercoaster shock from electric bar syndrome
not yet invented
and tells me to give a chance
and love him.