Blackened circles spot the pads
where oil memories sank into the concrete -
you roll over them as you pull up to the pump -
you see the cashier behind the plexiglass
scanning bottles of soda and packs of cigarettes
and scratch tickets -
the regulars he knows -
the ones not known to others -
it is a community of the night -
the nurses on swing shift
the musicians coming home from a gig -
the bar tenders, beer sopped
and the junkie homeless who know
they won't get run off from the bathrooms
when it's three AM and the respectable people are asleep.
The clubbers, too, who think they are doing something new
and can only imagine being this way
young and beautiful.
Even so, he scans their ice cream
because who has never had ice cream
when the moon is tired and the sun has hit the snooze button
one more time.
Isn't that ah-mazing?!
But the other residents know them for what they are -
tourists passing through.
The cashier is an unwilling priest -
a keeper of the fluorescent flame -
warding off the darkness.
Which are you? Resident or tourist?
It doesn't matter as you leave your car by the pump
and walk through the door with the markers for height -
the priest will see you now,
and provide you sustenance for the darkest hours.
