Jane's Dream

The station is open

And the glow

From the sign

Above the chargers

Stretches

For miles

In all directions

So that it becomes

A beacon

And so they come

From Oakland

And Detroit

Albany

And Albuquerque

Jane pulls up

On a push trolley

On the wrong side

Of the station

But she’s not tired

And it never occurred to her

To be scared

To push her way through

The desert

When she finds herself

Inside the store

She thinks about whether

She should buy a packet of crisps

And not eat them

Or a packet of chewing gum

She’ll never chew

The clerk behind the counter

Doesn’t like

The look of the patronage tonight

So she makes sure

The pistol is accessible to her

Next to the extra

Scratch tickets

But Jane just wants to buy something

So she’ll have an excuse

To stay inside

A little bit longer

Once she’s back on the trolley

She has to push her way

To Delphi

And then Duluth

Beyond that

She doesn’t know

For now the only plan

Is to plan on the wheels

Falling off

So that she has no choice

But to make

Another plan

But right now

She’s got to plan on

Staring at a bottle of Pepsi

Until the clerk

Asks her

If she’s planning on buying it

No harassment arrives

And when she looks

In the cooler glass

She sees that

The clerk is gone

She pulls the Pepsi

Thinking the woman

Has just gone in back

To grab something

Maybe the phone rang

Did it ring?

Is there a phone?

She waits at the counter

Nickels and dimes

At the ready

But nobody comes

And nobody comes back

And the other customers

All blink under the blinking lights

Like they’re eyeing themselves

In a funhouse mirror

Jane blinks back
At them

What’s the price

Of a Pepsi these days?

She leaves the store

And when she looks back

It’s as she suspects--

No store

No station

No charging port

She’s in the middle

Of nowhere

With nothing

Else to dream about

She calls for a technician

And when her lids crack

The morning crew

Is already showing up

For their shift

Pepsi’s in hand

They ask Jane

If she got

A good night’s sleep

And she’ll tell them

She doesn’t remember

They’ll ask her

If she’d like to

But why use up

All the memory

On dreams?