Fumes and Memory

Pulling up to the pump, the smell hits me first,

that sweet, sharp sting,

like a sudden hunger, a thirst

for something gone, something thin.

The ground all around where the spills land,

a rainbow slick, catching the afternoon sun,

a mirror for what I can't quite understand,

a place where the forgetting has begun.

It burns a little in the back of my nose,

and I'm back in that summer, dusty heat,

where every wrong choice strangely grows,

and something in me knows defeat.

Then the nozzle clicks, full and done,

the smell fades, but the feeling stays on.