Why the Winfield...

Why the Winfield Gas Station Store is Closed at Midnight

Because the only kinds of people
who go in past eleven are looking
for something to piss in, or something to puke in 
or something to fuck with
or someone to fuck with.

Because they'd have to pay some worn-out mother
to leave her children alone in their alien beds
and come all the way down to stand at the sticky counter
with all of the people still awake and wait 
for us to buy our chips and gum and condoms, 
stopping for a moment along the Mississippi
on our non-stop way from Wood River to Quincy.

Because sometimes you've got to rest, you've got to lock
all the doors and admit that it's time to lie down,
that even the poorest of mothers must sleep like anyone else
and wake up in the morning to greet each solitary day
as if there aren't people still awake from the last one,
opening up their wet mouths to tell
any of us who will listen that they went swimming last night 
in the perilous waters without even flinching and changed
all our lives.

Whatever the reason, I stand at the door while you fill up the tank
in strange pastures of concrete far behind me,
and look in at the untouched shelves on my own,
reveling in the heavy sensation
of being alone.