Atlas, Sweating By Dennis Finnell

Bob and Glenn's Mobil Service Station, St. Louis
​

Talk about your camera lucida, talk about your cave.

A man holds a Cadillac over his head, his arms like limbs of an oak, the Caddy a house above, all a tree house, trunk-man and car-house, with a flying red horse sewn to the man's left shirt pocket, Glenn stitched in red threads on his right. And that bikinied woman tattooed in smoke in his right arm, True Love Margaret & Glenn scrolling an inked heart in his left.

Glenn steps from under the Cadillac, the Caddy staying put, shifts a lever at the wall. Cadillac descends to the garage floor. And then numerous actual events occur for the first but not the last time--bells ringing for service when car tires roll over the rubber hoses, looking like super-long nightcrawlers, bells ringing for gas, for dipsticks to be eyed, tire pressures to be gauged, windshields to be wiped, several while Glenn wears a dampened red shop towel around his neck, to cool him in the St. Louis summer, so humid the rag does not dry, is more a length of haze about his neck.

As he leaves each night Glenn never forgetting

to check the payphone
for any forgotten coin

​day's gratuity.

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Dennis Finnell has published five books of poems. The first, Red Cottage, was awarded the Juniper Prize from the University of Massachusetts Press. His most recent book, Ruins Assembling (Shape & Nature Press, 2014), was nominated for the 2016 Poets' Choice Award. He has taught literature and writing at the University of Tennessee, Mount Holyoke College, and Wesleyan University, and served as Co-Director of Financial Aid at Greenfield Community College for several years. He hails from St. Louis, but has called western Massachusetts home for years.