Bruce Boston
SURREAL FILL-UP
The hose turns into a snake in my hands,
spewing forth the half-digested bodies
of mice and birds rather than high octane.The attendant's face is straight out of Picasso,
his Bad Period, the stuff they never let you see.The coffee machine serves me a cup of lava
with a flaming umbrella in it. No cream.The candy machine is stuffed with fish,
frozen blocks of fish that slowly drip
a mephitic sludge into the slot below.The bathrooms are clean.
Back on the highway I watch the
white line waver back and forth
like the brushstroke it is.