Stewart Florsheim

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Reading Spinoza at a Rest Stop on the I-5

I search for god in every corner
of the Travel Center of America:
between slices of turkey breast at Subway,
on lines leading to the restroom, in the impatient
sighs of a woman waiting to pay for a beef jerky.
 
After I unscrew the cap of my gas tank,
I imagine Spinoza at the adjacent pump—
a small man wearing his signature black cloak,
pumping gas into a first-generation silver Prius.
He tells me I’m trying too hard,
that god is thought itself, the very reason
I’ve embarked on my wonderful journey.
 
I screw the cap back on my tank, turn around
and he’s gone, heading north on the I-5,
the Travel Center too electrified
to see even a single star in the sky.