Viewing Edward Hopper's "Gas, 1940"

We see a country road cooling down, the joe-pye weeds
in the ditch and the sultry white pines.
It’s a little after sunset—deceptively beautiful—
a streak of pink hanging above the earth,
and the station attendant is a man doing the routine jobs
of locking the gas pumps for the night, dragging in the rack
of oil and wiperblades , a scene we knew well.
We can feel the loneliness of the station
in the way the road is empty of automobiles,
the way the light escapes the station’s open door,
inviting the man back inside.
Overhead, in the white sign’s spotlight,
a winged horse still soars, as though keeping watch
for motorists invoking the power of the gods.

All day something has kept the dials spinning
on the pump, dinging the owner’s tiny money bell.
All day something has pulsed through the black rubber
hose, making splashing sounds in the cars’ metal tanks.
All day some voice in the attendant’s head has stuttered,
Filler up? Check under that hood? That’ll be $1.80
for ten gallons of ethyl, sir. Come again.
And finally, some familiar euphoria has lifted off the man
at the end of the day, leaving his head achy, body sluggish.

Should he not think of the world as a vast engine,
purring along under his care?
Should he not want to climb behind the wheel
and joyride until the wheels fall off?
Or should we, the witnesses, point out how the artist
chose not to paint any oil rainbows or gas stains
in the white sand of the driveway, chose not to let us see
the attendant’s ash-gray face, his eyes dull as lead?
If we didn’t know who we’d become, we’d almost believe it.