Elizabeth Bishop "Filling Station"

                                                                                              ©2012 Becky Smith

The Elizabeth Bishop poem, with an editorial note from Brian Bartlett, AL's Halifax correspondent:

          "Peter, Now that Autoliterate has posted Mathew Dickman's "Gas Station," the natural follow-up would be Elizabeth Bishop's wry poem below, originally from her collection Questions of Travel (Farrar, Straus & Gieroux, 1965). The filling station that inspired the poem in Great Village, NS, has been replaced by an Irving one"--BB

         And check this link to the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia"--PB

Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
-- this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color --
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret? 

Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.