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Deosil Fuel

I was riding on fumes when I coasted
up to the backwoods pumps and saw,
just after Regular and Plus, a grade
marked boldly Deosil Fuel with daisies
chaining all around the nozzle.

The spelling wasn’t some graffitied joke
but perfectly precise. The reader showed
no price. The hose glowed like beams
of sun through dusty summer air and felt
warm and alive with hum in my hand.

I thought, Why not? and filled the tank
with what danced through as a Celtic reel
lashing out along the line in a rumbling purr.
The wheels inhaled. The locks click-clacked.
The glass glowed ruddy where the angles met.

When I turned the wheel to leave, I leaped
onto the road shedding and back-stepping
in a sweet-hay world come back from when
I dallied and dillied and lollygagged without
knowing the weight of a widdershins world.

—
Brian C. Billings is a professor of English and drama at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, where he also serves as the editor-in-chief for Aquila Review. His poems have appeared in Abandoned Mine, Ancient Paths, Argestes, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, and The Woven Tale Press.

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