Laura DeHart Young
Truck Stop Prayer
Bless the smell of cinnamon buns,
burnt coffee, wet gravel after a
sudden rain.
Cigarette smoke and truck exhaust,
engine oil, garbage stench, and grit.
Bless finding a truck stop just in time.
Bless a strong woman
who studies the horizon,
doesn't bend or bow.
Weighs her words—
a fire in her silence
revealed through dusky eyes.
Like the woman at the next pump,
directing the flow of fuel
into a black pickup—
her glance straying
from the shimmering horizon
to my wrestling
with a jammed gas cap.
Bless the arm that reaches across
and twists it open
with a calloused hand.
A hand you want around
to open dill pickle jars
and strawberry jam.
“Where you headed?” she asks,
cowboy hat flapping in the breeze.
Maybe it’s a blessing I don't own
a western hat—just passing through
these foreign plains
where footsteps shed grief
and forward motion dulls pain.
I am good at running away—
from discomfort,
reckoning.
Shattered stoneware
flying past my head
in nightly dreams.
Bless glances that say just enough—
this woman leaning
against the pump,
asking with concern: “You hungry?”
Sunlight burns her shoulders,
streaks of gold woven
through brunette hair.
She must have noticed
the bruised cheekbone, stitches.
Bless the gravel crunching
under our boots
past license plates from states
I’ve never visited.
We order Buc-ee’s brisket sandwiches,
eat in the bed of her truck—
closeness I no longer remember.
Bless the wide felt brim
casting shadows across her face—
hiding softness,
voice quiet, but deliberate.
She owns a small dairy farm off 80 East
outside Lincoln—
runs it with her brother,
barely breaking even.
Her forehead is lined with hard work,
face tanned, shoulders sculpted.
She lifts me down—
presses a number into my hand.
“Call me,” she says.
Bless that.
What I Couldn’t Fix
There wasn't much visible
under the sink.
Laced boots and an inch of jeans.
Your muffled voice,
asking for the crescent wrench.
I study the same tool
in a hardware store off Route 66—
balance its weight on two fingers,
cold in my palm as I adjust it.
Imagine your hand reaching,
pipes clanking years ago.
The screen door slams for the tenth time,
never fully closing.
The store a dinosaur of time—
stuffy, organized chaos
with an inch of desert dust,
sharp smell of grease, and
tang of WD-40.
A lone fan spinning overhead
accomplishes nothing.
I return the wrench
to a faded pegboard
where it's likely been dangling
for a decade—
step over a golden retriever
sprawled in the next aisle.
Locate tire pressure gauges—
what I really need—
piled high in a plastic bin.
I remember using one on your Datsun—
you standing, hands on hips,
asking, “What is that thing?”
The same woman who could
fix a sink
was car clueless.
I pick up a handful,
let them slip back
through my fingers into the barrel
like I’m sifting
through old memories.
Kneeling on snow-covered ground,
testing tires—pressure low.
Explaining the readings to
a blank stare.
At the counter, a man in a stained apron,
informs me, “Cash only.”
Punches an old-time register,
indicator window displaying the price.
Bells chime, the drawer flings open.
I forgot what a penny looked like.
I leave this museum of spare parts,
each one built to repair something—
except what’s gone.
No tool has ever existed
to fix what happened to us.
Laura DeHart Young is a queer poet and novelist whose work explores memory, resilience, and the emotional terrain of relationships. Her poems have appeared in The Eunoia Review, Last Leaves Magazine, The Ravens Perch, The Bluebird Word, Book of Matches, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Burnt Toast and Benedictions, was published in October 2025. She is the author of seven novels from Bella Blooks.
