Thoughts While Waiting in a Gasoline Line

Curse Mr. Ford's four-wheeled contraption.

I drive it;

then it drives me

to the gasoline station

to the gasoline station

and...

to the gasoline station.

It drives me also to the repair shop

to the muffler shop, to the transmission shop,

where I am in the hands of the repairmen,

angry gods, who dazzle me with blazing repair bills

and the destruction of starters, manifolds,

carburetors, great whatyouraters and small thingalators;

things with powerful names and expensive parts

which will not let me drive again.

And I must sign the authorized bill

on the authorized dotted line

and pay with the properly authorized, no-bounce check

or cash only, because the shop does not take checks

or I will be in eternal plastic debt,

which I still am, for I will drive again

to be driven again

to the gasoline station.

There, many men, like me, are waiting

in vehicles, like mine,

and they are drive again to lines

which are like the lines today

and we will curse Mr. Ford and Mr. Chrysler

and Mr. Plymouth and their four-wheeled contraptions

another day.