Issue Forty-Four - Summer 2024

Love’s Truck Stop

By Gayle Kaune

When we stop for gas in Bakersfield
I order a biscuit with sugar
but really, it’s a donut. Once a year
I allow myself this treat
and while it’s not the same as dancing,
I can recycle memories of youth
there amidst the glass case of crullers.

It is a cruel thing to eat a sprinkle-donut
amidst the smell of gasoline,
to hold it in its square of waxed paper
while turning the squeaky, metal
display tree of Christian books:
A time for pursuing a new life
in Jesus. I want a new life
dancing, not sitting in an easy chair.

It took me a long time to master
the faux leather recliner
here, at our rental condo: pull a lever
and the foot rest jumps out,
but how to get it to go back?

I fight against putting my feet
up, eating crullers, becoming indulgent,
but there are moments when it’s a ritual:
standing in the aisle of a Love’s
truck stop in Bakersfield,

surrounded by candy bars,
stuffed animals, little trolls to hang
from your rear view mirror
all designed to remind you

hang in there, keep driving,
don’t eat too many donuts.
There is an entire display of people
who love you, spinning, waiting,
for you to come home.

Copyright 2024 Kaune

Gayle Kaune has been one of the poetry editors for SHARK REEF. Her newest book, Noise from Stars is from Tebot Bach. About her earlier book, All the Birds Awake, Peggy Shumaker has said, “these vivid poems show us ways to live and ways to face the end of living.” Kaune’s chapbook, Concentric Circles, won the Flume Press award. She’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her book, Still Life in the Physical World, was published by Blue Begonia Press. She lives in Port Townsend with her husband and little red dog.  

All work by