mineral lit mag
  • Home
  • About/Submissions
  • Masthead
  • Featured Poets Series
    • 3 poems by Chris Prewitt
    • 3 poems by Taylor Byas
    • 3 Poems by David Hanlon
    • 3 poems by Bailey Grey
  • Issues
    • Issue 1
    • Issue 1.5: Hozier-inspired
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 3: Recovery
    • Issue 3.5: Lana Del Rey
    • Special Summer Solstice Prose Issue
    • Issue 4.1
    • Issue 4.2
    • Still Standing
  • Home
  • About/Submissions
  • Masthead
  • Featured Poets Series
    • 3 poems by Chris Prewitt
    • 3 poems by Taylor Byas
    • 3 Poems by David Hanlon
    • 3 poems by Bailey Grey
  • Issues
    • Issue 1
    • Issue 1.5: Hozier-inspired
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 3: Recovery
    • Issue 3.5: Lana Del Rey
    • Special Summer Solstice Prose Issue
    • Issue 4.1
    • Issue 4.2
    • Still Standing
At the filling station on San Pablo & 34th Ave
            by MJ JONES
Black folk scream at each other –
           off some poison swallowed to
           bring back rainbow soap colors.
 
It shatters my psyche
           to a ragged rattled breath,
sets my teeth on edge,
            makes me squeeze the nozzle
            that much harder.
 
Pumping gas wasn’t always a trigger.
 
On pit stops headed for Philly, we kids hopped out
            to stretch our daddylong legs, got
            high off gasoline fumes, stuffed faces
            with beef jerky & pork rinds greasing
            thick petroleum on our lips – 
 
On special days we’d go through carwashes.
            Pops became a pirate
            and the huge tentacles
            scrubbing down the car’s sides
            lathered Leviathans
            we raised swords to.
            And there’d be screaming.
            Tear-streaked laughter & Lemonheads.
 
                                       That soursweet.

MJ Jones is a poet & parent living in Oakland, CA. Their work is featured or forthcoming at Anomaly, Kissing Dynamite, Rigorous Mag, & Borderlands Texas Poetry Review. They are an Assistant Poetry Editor at Foglifter Press. MJ has received fellowships from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, SF Writers Grotto, VONA, & Kearny Street Workshop. They are currently the Community Engagement Graduate Fellow in the MFA program at Mills College.
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