[In response to the Day Four challenge of the WordPress Writing 101 Project http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_assignment/writing-101-day-four/ , I am, for the first time, posting some of my poetry… This is a little triptych of observational poems on the subject of loss which I put together a year or so ago and have since tried to touch up…]

Stuff Picked Up at the Supermarket

(A Triptych with a Kiss in the Middle)

(i)

Shop Girl Mopping up Eggs

 

The girl kneels dutifully in her uniform,

attempting with a single damp dish-cloth

to slop a whole half dozen broken eggs

back into their box. The sticky mess

of albumin, burst yolk and shards of shell

oozes around the chapped varnish of her

fingernails. She goes about it

with a clumsy, uncomplaining,

methodical sense of purpose. As if

omelets could be unmade,

accidents undone.

 

(ii)

 

Boy Rescuing Beads

A kid of about six in the burger bar

outside the supermarket

has just had a necklace bought for him

by mom&dad.

He fingers the multi-colored beads

excitedly, eyes filled with glee,

as mom&dad munch on Big Macs,

fiddling so frenetically at the string

of fake jewels

that it explodes in a cascading

rainbow of variously-sized hailstones

all over the shop.

First fat tears well,

then his face bursts suddenly

into full-blown tempest of grief…

Everyone near rushes to their feet

to help… The boy clutches at his mother’s inner thighs.

Sobs ebb and flow,

sometimes surging up again in a sudden swell of remembrance

or thanks, as his father and nearby strangers crawl around

on all fours after the scattered beads,

scooping them from the gutters

into a plastic cup,

like votive offerings…

 

Touched by this act of grace, the boy

is soon skipping down the escalator,

hot on the tail of one stubborn fleeing bead,

smiling, laughingly, as if it were a game,

*

All ends well.

As mom&dad traipse off into the dark,

son skipping happily between their held hands,

I spot the large pink bauble that was the center-piece,

left behind, being crushed under a heavily-laden shopping cart,

 

[Interlude]

Kiss

The chubby girl who works on the cheese counter

is pleased that her paycheck has come through

this month & her debit card is good for lunch.

She gives it a triumphant little peck of a kiss.

 

(iii)

 

The Contents of a Shopping Cart

 

The girl before me in the check-out queue

has crackers and coffee filters in her basket,

a single oven-ready meal, two bottles

of beer, cleaning fluid, juice,

and bread rolls. As if breakfast

were her main meal, or she were

preparing to wake up with someone

new and special for the first time tomorrow morning.

*

What would she do, I wonder, were these simple,

yet not so simple, pleasures to suddenly be snatched away?

Mount barricades? Storm Congress?

Fight riot police in the streets?

Take up arms—first bits of wood,

then Molotov cocktails, then Kalashnikovs,

then shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles?

Take over the TV station?

Bark out demands?