Gasoline

I like the smell of gasoline,
just a whiff, enough to make
you think about the thin elixir
running through the shining pipes
with the gray resin of earth
and fumes on the outside.

But someone parked a car
with a leaky tank nearby
and I can feel my memories
smelting out of my brain
and burning like a new fuel
for America’s engines.

If you’re a traveler, America
is a whirling dervish vision
rising out of the blur of all
the grassy roadsides going by.
The smell makes the past combust
and you live in the present, burning it up.