Inconvenient Store

Picture perfect copy of the crumbling shop

next door one thousand miles away

atop the grey peaks forgotten of civilization

it may be a living memento of canvas and paint

forgotten beneath the ruins of a shack

home of the artist decayed into oblivion.

The occasional semi shakes the remaining walls

as it speeds to conquer the mountain

but the locals continue on their numbing trail

not in a rush to reach a destination

unaware that they did once have a goal

their journey ended here on the oily concrete.

We pass another such relic of forgotten times

two old pumps with rickety numbers rolling by

the familiar fragrance of gasoline permeates the air

figures in greasy overalls throw unhappy glances at us

the enemy unwilling to stop and listen to a story

they go back to their spitting cans and liquid fire.

The scenery does not change much in a neighboring town

across state lines into an immensity of desert fields

half-rotten wooden signs with washed-out images

show a pin-up girl claiming the prowess of a super fuel

only seventy-five miles away if you can make it

a joke well played on the unprepared explorer.

Faint neon in blue and white and in red claim to be best

during decades already dissolved into another century

fixtures of these unlikely landscapes the same characters

stand one foot upon the atrophied structures

smoking away the dreams they never had

they do not see us as we slow for directions, fixed in their cardboard reality.

Poussin teaches French and English at a university in Georgia, USA. His work in poetry and photography has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other publications worldwide. Most recently, his collections “In Absentia,” and “If I Had a Gun,” were published in 2021  and 2022 by Silver Bow Publishing.