In the Supermarket

By David Swartz

 

The Suzy-cream-cheese face
On that check-out girl
Reading our daily bread
Into the computer,
Weighing even the bananas,
Feeding the black face,
The flickering numbers,
Our paycheck.

 

I have had coffee and milk
In a Styrofoam cup, muddy,
Settling, from everyone's Miss America,
Distrusting my masher wire rims,
My beard, bright blue eyes
In dark sockets, hands thrust
Deep in a navy coat.

 

Like a transsexual wide receiver,
6 foot 193,
Burning vision through 20 aisles,
Sniffing the tile for piss scent,
Stuffing a Bering in my virile lips,
Coveting even the little lady
Straining with her dust-dry crotch,
Noting her calves.

 

Someone moos a minion
Over the PA.  Mild man
With a badge rushes toward Produce.
I am startled,
Detected, observed, tagged, confined,
Clutching a carton of Camels
By the perfumed buttocks of your wife.

 

Published July 2008