Next to the Gas Station That Sells Chicken Wings
by Kendra DeColo & Tyler Mills
the fortuneteller ebbed in dime store jewelry
听 听 听 听 听 reads your star chart like a takeout menu,
the moon hanging sideways like a jaw,
听 听 听 听 听 pneumatic mouths of peonies tattooed
across her chest like the first oily harlequin
听 听 听 听 听 illustrations. She is aloof
but determined, charging you $200 to listen
听 听 听 听 听 to her voice; a match fizzled in a beer bottle
left on the side of the road like a Christmas tree
听 听 听 听 听 ornament lending its subdued charisma to
the interstate where you rode all night
听 听 听 听 听 to get to this neon cove, pressed
your cheek against the dash like a gun鈥檚 emptied
听 听 听 听 听 chamber, bullets of rain spattered
onto the windshield and blurring
听 听 听 听 听 the gas station insignia like wings
of melted mascara down your cheeks. She concludes
听 听 听 听 听 after a sip of Diet Coke that there is a man
waiting for you in the gold-lit corner
听 听 听 听 听 of the future. He is holding something
of yours in his hands. He will smooth out
听 听 听 听 听 the rough edges. He will cure
the STD inherited in high school
听 听 听 听 听 when you lost your virginity
to the one who dropped out with a semester
听 听 听 听 听 left. He will be the answer to the hectic plot
of your life, she says while checking a text message
听 听 听 听 听 on her phone. He won鈥檛 do things
like get so drunk he pisses on the living room
听 听 听 听 听 carpet stumbling home at 4 am. He won鈥檛
leave other women鈥檚 phone numbers
听 听 听 听 听 for you to find in his pockets
while doing laundry. He will say your name
听 听 听 听 听 like the only word that matters.
When he holds your hand, stars
听 听 听 听 听 will pierce your liver
as if your body can鈥檛 hold
听 听 听 听 听 that much light.
鈥淣ext to the Gas Station that Sells Chicken Wings鈥� is a poem from our collaborative chapbook, Low Budget Movie, out this summer through Diode Editions. As I was going through my notes, I remembered that we first conceived 鈥淣ext to the Gas Station鈥︹�� as part of a series of poems that embodied what we thought of as 鈥淪pite and Joy鈥� (capital S, capital J!). I find joy in each line of this poem, which emerged from fragments during a time I felt like I couldn鈥檛 write. The misogyny and racism of Trump鈥檚 political campaign was at a fever pitch (only to get even worse). Piece by piece, as we wrote 鈥淣ext to the Gas Station鈥� together, one of us would build the poem by sending a few lines to the other poet, and we鈥檇 stop writing just before finishing a simile, metaphor, or thought past a line. Sometimes, when the ball of the poem was kicked back to me, all I had were five words--and even though this was all I had, I鈥檇 try to give the poem鈥檚 steering wheel a firm twist. I don鈥檛 remember who wrote these lines, but I do recall the process where one of us took the line just to the edge of an action before sharing it with the other poet:
...a beer bottle
left on the side of the road like a Christmas tree
ornament lending its subdued charisma to [to where?]
the interstate where you rode all night.听
-TM
Yes! I love the way we could lean into the unknown and trust that the other person would take the fragment and run. I鈥檓 always struck by how this project was pure play鈥攊sn鈥檛 spite as playful as joy?鈥� how we would write an email with only the word 鈥淧ing鈥� to notify the other that new lines had been added. And I love how grafting/hemming/cleaving lines to one another鈥檚 felt both secretive and public, like scrawling a love note on the side of a bridge, waiting for the beloved to drive past on their way to work. It amazes me that this exercise in playfulness and connection evolved into what feels like one voice, pivoting and lunging forward to celebrate and interrogate beauty.
I also would like to note that the poem was originally called 鈥淗eroine鈥檚 Journey鈥濃�攁 nod to the ways in which women have been left out of classic frame of storytelling, and a reference to the anecdote in which Joseph Campbell allegedly said to his student Maureen Murdock: "Women don鈥檛 need to make the journey, they are the place that everyone is trying to get to." So much of our play (joy and spite) has been centered on this shared feeling of being shut out, and then writing our way back in.
-KD
is the author of three poetry collections, I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers From the World (BOA Editions, 2021); My Dinner with Ron Jeremy; and Thieves in the Afterlife, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013听Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She is also co-author of Low Budget Movie (Diode, 2021), a collaborative chapbook written with Tyler Mills. She has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Bread听Loaf Writers鈥� Conference, the Millay Colony, Split this Rock, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House, Waxwing, Los Angeles Review, Bitch Magazine, VIDA, and elsewhere.听DeColo currently teaches at The Hugo House and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
is the author of the chapbook The City Scattered (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo Press, 2022), co-author with Kendra DeColo of Low Budget Movie (Diode Editions Chapbook Prize, Diode Editions, 2021), and author听of the poetry books Hawk Parable and Tongue Lyre. A poet and essayist, her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Republic, The Believer, and POETRY, and her essays in AGNI, Brevity, Copper Nickel, and The听Rumpus. Mills teaches for Sarah Lawrence College鈥檚 Writing Institute, edits The Account, and lives in Brooklyn.