Elizabeth Bishop’s "Filling Station" captures what gives are mundane lives meaning. While reading her poem, I believed her to be simply describing a mucky, middle-of-nowhere, ma and pa gas station- which she did beautifully. When I read her final line, "someone loves us all," I audibly gasped in elation. The obvious signs of somebody’s hard work were not necessarily beautiful images; the row of cans spelling ESSO SO-SO-SO or the colorful comic stack of comic books offered little visual pleasure. However, Bishop successfully articulates that any degree of labor and thought a person gives to making another feel more comfortable is an indication of love. Even in a dinky gas station that probably sees few visitors, somebody makes an effort to ensure every wandering driver that stops by has a nicely embroidered doily to admire; somebody cares about the little details that make a positive difference to a stranger’s experience; somebody cares. I think if Bishop had written her entire poem harping on the love and care that someone at a dirty gas station expresses with a taboret and how she felt loved because of it, the tone could be too mushy and therefore not as intriguing. By employing stanzas describing every dirty detail, only including the beautiful parts at the end, Bishop effectively creates not only a unique plot twist, but she also allows her descriptions of the little details that made the place special seem as insignificant and almost unnoticeable in the poem as they did at the actual filling station itself.