Dingy Service Station.

When I was 19,
I worked in this
terribly dingy service station.
It was open all through the night,
and drunks would flock to it at 1am,
when the trains stopped running
and they would buy
all manner of
hot bakery goods,
to sober them up
(i think, at least)
enough to handle the sway of the taxi cabs
in and out of deserted lanes.

I could barely take a breath
between the drunks
and the smokers
and the tourists
and the tattooed
and the gold-toothed, (possibly) dealers
who would show up with wads
of fifty dollar notes
and the next day beg
for a loan of five dollars for milk.

"Where'd it all go?"
I'd wonder.