How To Run A Wire Filling Station

By Peter Jay Shippy / Issue 2

Hour when sunflowers bend

Toward other starlight, searching

For a trace of ignition. Don’t fret,

I whisper, infidelity

Is safe with me. Fill up.

# # #

I park inside the wire station

Turning my mind over

To the vending machine: candy,

Condoms, and a red comb.

Hour when the rooster candles

Her eggs. His peep

Twists like raw filament.

# # #

Hour when the blue sands

In the neon hourglass

Stop sifting and puddle, last call.

Hour for my rounds. Will

I see you? In the sedan?

Beneath the snow, worrying

The dials for a station

That plays one voice

Plus one voice?

Peter Jay Shippy is the author of Thieves’ Latin (University of Iowa Press, 2003), Alphaville (BlazeVOX BOOKS, 2006), and How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic (Rose Metal Press, 2007). He has published widely, including The American Poetry Review, The Boston Globe, Iowa Review, and Ploughshares. Shippy teaches literature and writing at Emerson College in Boston.