Vending Machines

After three or four days without sleep
there isn't anything I like to do better
than walk up to a Pepsi machine
whistling Coke is the real thing.  Then
I sit down with my back to a concrete
wall and try to decide.  Usually, I
wind up just staring at the sucker.
It's hard to find a machine with bottles.
They're all aluminum cans.  So why the fuck
do they have a bottle opener on the front?
I know the first thing that I do
when I come home from the store with
a six pack of bottles is to go out
and look for a vending machine.

It's a Pepsi generation, coming at you, growing strong.
Pepsi Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that's a lot.
It really is a lot if you're on a space shuttle.
Sixteen million and the damn toilet
still doesn't work.  Hey, pull over to the next bush,
I got to take a leak.

Little plastic rectangles for maybe seven selections,
orange light, make another.
I don't want another.
Correct change only, but I don't have it.
Shit!  There has to be a better way.
This is why cotton costs more than synthetics;
after three or four days without sleep,
people sit alone in concrete corridors
bathed in the glow of a machine.

                     published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.