88 OxfordPoets 2010

Gasoline

A week ago I spilled a can of gasoline onto the dirt floor of the barn.

A gallon or so soaked into the earth. Since then, I’ve had headaches, can’t catch my balance.

And I can still smell the gas from more than twenty yards away. It reminds me of hitching west and this ride I hooked in the back of a truck the color of rust.

When I shook the driver’s hand he smiled. His teeth looked like a caterpillar and I knew I was beat.

The guy kept all these rags back there, soaked in gasoline. It was warm and I fell asleep in a cocoon of reek.

When I came to, it was almost time to get out. I could feel caterpillars on me, thought I was going to suffocate.

He said the free ride was over, it was only a matter of time, and I didn’t wish to be out west,

didn’t care to sit in any more cars with strangers and talk about the pace or weather back east.

I tried to lose the smell in a stream, thought I sent it upriver, away like father, the attic, his ties.