On Not Buying Vintage Oil T-Shirts at Old Navy by Jane Satterfield

In the absence of severe alerts, we drove through the clearing
streets, past yards strewn

with storm debris, here and there dodging
a downed power line

to see where we might save a few cents at the pump.
We might well consider

this week’s body count, the sorrow sustained in our announcer’s
stern face or the one tune

from the man at the top: we must find alternatives to fossil fuel,
same static we’ve been hearing

as long as we’ve been listening.

While shopping I was drawn to the discount table of vintage-style
tees, coveting the muted colors,

and old fashioned oil company logos, signposts of stations—
Texaco, Gulf, Esso, Sinclair—

seen from the back seat of Buicks, Grand Torinos, those gas-guzzling
family cars where we bounced along,

sans seat belts, watching the world going by. Today a corps of
engineers struggles with a containment

cap. With the right app I could click as I shop, access
the list of federal

Agencies involved in response to the gallons hemorrhaged
By a dynamically positioned





Semi-submersible rig. Noise cannons keep birds from landing
In contaminated areas.

Apocalypse and empire— . We might wade out into silence.
And if later I somehow ease

into sleep, will I wake as I did more than a decade ago,
from the dream of rigs

burning a smoke script across the whirling desert sky?

Read more of Jane Satterfield's poems in the Spring 2015 edition of the Delaware Poetry Review.