Groceries

Welcome to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving! It’s a different year for most. I posted two pictures to go with the poem because I was kind of impressed that image choices for ‘grocery shopping,’ already had lots of pictures of people shopping with masks on! It will be a different type of holiday for many. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was always a ‘fun day for me.’ When I was young, I would attend ‘The Turkey Trot Teen Dance,’ at the YMCA, which was the ‘biggest teen dance of the year.’ As I got older, it was an opportunity in college and beyond to come home and meetup with friends that were in town for the holiday. As I’ve gotten even older, it’s been just a night evening (most of the time) knowing I’d have a day off the next day. For those cooking a meal for intimate family or larger families, here’s to the process of shopping for that food! I like this poem cause it’s fun. The kind of poem deserving of ‘the day before Thanksgiving.’ So, if you have last minute shopping or are preparing to ready your ‘big meal,’ or are just staying home, this is to the start of the Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S.

Groceries

dairy aisle
dixie jeans

dishes pile up in the sink

sunken cleavage
the systematic push of the cart

this is how we forget to mow the lawn

deli fresh
this is how newlyweds have sex

no preservatives added

this is how you love someone else
if your wife wore a different face

bakery

when you stop wanting her til it burns
when you begin to squeeze her hand like dough

boners rolled out like breadsticks

this is where I learn to perch on your lip
booze mart

let it walk on your tongue

wear something trashy
that makes a man blush amen

it looks so neat and clean

rows and rows of bottles
before the Dear John letters,

the laughter and the bar fights

a little blood coming out of my lip
Pharmacy

unopened prescriptions

racing hummingbird heads
we’re back to where we started

pills and pistols in the cart

one exit
to a parking lot

filled with cars going nowhere

filled with nowhere cars
a Saturday breeze

and I just wish

it’d carry with me
out of this life that has staled

to a market full of fresh fruit

grown by someone’s real hands
where a head of lettuce has been loved

more than anything we’ve had.