Arby’s Pilot Casino
By T. Dallas Saylor
Blessed are the poor in spirit, says
Gordon McKernan, big truck lawyer,
on one of his dozens of billboards lining
the Louisiana stretch of I-10, mixed in
with ads for boudin and cracklin’s,
the Coushatta Casino, the Tiger Truck Stop
which—after Our Tiger Lived Longer,
than whom I’m not sure, now features
a live camel—and Gordon’s rival
Morris Bart—One Call, Y’All.
I pull off for gas at one of these holy
trinity complexes featuring fuel plus fast
food plus casino: the door’s cartoon miner
pans for gold, swears that in the time I idle
guzzling a dozen gallons into my tank
or choosing between Combo 3 and Combo 5
I could be striking it so rich I’ll blow bills
out my tail pipe as I rocket right out
of this state, & why stop there, out of
the country, off the surface of the planet.
In the bathroom as I wash up at the sink,
adjust my skinny-ass jeans over my small frame,
straighten my N95 & fluff my long curls
in the mirror, a man walks in & stops,
apologizes, pokes his head out the door
& double-checks the sign. Why do I feel like
I’ve won this one, gotten away with something
forbidden—delicious, like the extra-large fry,
like one last quarter slipped in the slit
of the slot machine, & at last the crank comes up
three 7’s: I’m biblically blessed, birthmarked,
not a man in the desert but the desert
in a man, a camel stuck in a truck stop,
or three cherries, meaning the rib is ready
to rip, burst forth from my chest, compete
with a Coke & knowledge of good & evil,
so bless my poor queer spirit, God, because I’m
blowing this joint, I’m using my one call, y’all,
blasting off this nationwide runway straight
to the stars on a full stomach & full tank.
T. Dallas Saylor (he/they) is a PhD candidate in poetry at Florida State University, and he holds an MFA from the University of Houston. His work meditates on the body—especially gender and sexuality—against physical, spiritual, and digital landscapes. His poetry has been featured in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, Christianity & Literature, PRISM international, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Houston, TX. He is on Twitter: @dallas_saylor.
Photo credit: “Lucky 7” by John Wardell via a Creative Commons license.
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