You pull up to the pump and a kid with pimples
on his cheeks and stubble on his chin asks
Cash or Credit?
In the car next you, or rather, on the other side
of the pump
the radio is so loud you look over and Dumbo
is dancing with Chiquita
they are bouncing up and down
to the music, if that’s what it is
the kid pumping their gas also
jiggles around a bit
probably likes the music
the kid comes back and gives you
the credit card
the receipt reads 15.2 gallons, $42.86
so what if the guy who lives next door remembers
fifteen gallons cost a buck twenty back in 1959
when the gas stations at the end of the street
had a gas war
and so what if he and his girlfriend in the
plaid skirt, sneakers and bobby socks
danced to the music on his car radio
while some pimple faced kid with
stubble on his chin pumped high test
and when the kid finished and your
neighbor turned the ignition key the
glass packs roared and the girl jumped
back into the car, slid across the seat
and put her shoulder next to his
but not her thigh
so what if the four cylinder
Japanese car across from you starts
quietly and the girl next to him
is in what the guy next door used to
call a bucket seat
the noise fades as he pulls
out of the station
so what?
Zvi A. Sesling has published in numerous magazines and won several prizes. He edits Muddy River Poetry Review. His books are King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street Press, 2010) and a chapbook Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011). His next full length volume, Fire Tongue, is due from Cervena Barva Press.