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Pegasus | J. Lorraine BrownIf you ask me, this is what I recall:
my father’s gas station, the smell of oil,
the gritty powdered soap he used to clean
his hands. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. They were never white.
Pumps like vanilla lollipops, and all
those black bow ties, and hats worn low, visors
catching the sun’s early morning dazzle.
Pegasus standing on the roof, hooves up,
wings pointed to the sky. The Coke machine,
Pegasus-red and corners curving like
shoulders. Five cents. Thud. A bottle falling.
Stacks of tires by the door and cigarettes
burning white worm-shaped ashes on the desk.
A bathroom key hanging from a wire hoop.
The calendar with Betty Grable in
July, and, in December, Marilyn
Monroe holding a red scarf to her breasts.
My father in the pit, his tan shirt smudged,
greasing the ball joints on a Plymouth coupe,
wiping the grease gun before he answers:
Sorry, dear, girls don’t work in gas stations.
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