Gas Station

Summer midnight

Cruising down the highway looking for a place to stop and get
a cigarette

I stop at a gas station with a broken sign and pull up by the door, turn off the engine, get out, stand and look

the air is warm, no breeze,
and the flickering neon window sign says just one word

SORRY

No sound to break the stillness of the night on this cigarette butt littered tarmac stained with black and faded by the years except the humm of neon lights and summer crickets buzz

Tell me how
do all the footsteps of a life
come down through all the years
to lead to such a place as this?

Tell me

there's no one here and I can feel the quiet like a blanket spreading out from this place, and I know I could drive and drive and not find more than here

I should go

I should go, but

I know

the steps will come back here