When you come here, low fuel light flashing,
your windshield and headlights smudged with splattered gnats,
we will do more than check your oil or pump your gas.
If you are hungry, you can find cramped shelves
of sunflower seeds and potato chips, of candy bars and beef jerky.
If you are thirsty, we carry both Coke and Pepsi products,
We have coolers lined with Lipton Iced Tea. If you are tired,
we have pot-rot coffee, freshly brewed about eight hours before.
If you long for that last cigarette, the one you grounded out
twenty years ago, we have more stuffed behind the counter,
Camels, Pall Mall even Virginia Slims. If you are lost,
we may ask if you need directions and you will say yes,
there was a road out, a bridge closed, a missed turn,
when the truth is that you have gone the wrong way,
and you are not sure how it happened. We will find a map
from beneath the cash register, one creased white with wear.
We will show you where you are now and then outline a road.
Here, we will explain, this is how you will get home.
-Karen J. Weyant
First published in Chagrin River Review
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