gas in poetry

something to be said
for that solemn ritual
gassing up the car
at the end of your
long working day

eleven, midnight
one-thirty or two
long after everyone
who isn’t either
desperate or crazy
is long safe in
their warm beds

we aren’t like
those people and
we’re not sure
we’d like it
if we were
so here
we are

almost too exhausted
to drive the last few
miles of the way home
alone in the crispness
the dampness of night
cold quiet darkness

something soothing about it
if you can manage to do it
if you can muster the energy
to pause in your pilgrammage
back to your place of being

the gauzy flickering light
the silence other than the
automated chirp of the pump
maybe a distant motor or
some fellow traveler’s
AM radio static crackle

we’re all headed
away from something
we’re all headed
off to something
sometimes home
sometimes work
sometimes paradise
sometimes oblivion
but we are all moving
to and away at once
subatomic particles
uncertain of our
rate of our travel
and our locations
at our once but
always moving
nonetheless

most of the time
we’re able to not
quite feel it
in denial of
our movement
but there
in the fumes
in the chill
in the loneliness
we can remember
we have been somewhere
we are going somewhere
but right now we are
standing at the roadside
filling up our tanks
for one tiny moment
aware of our
trajectories

something to be said
for that solemn ritual
before moving along
into the dark night