Thursday, January 05, 2012

Mass

Two tweakers pull up outside the Safeway
In a rust-gutted '83 K car last owned by her exes
Exes ex.

Not exactly a new car, but it was new to them.
And he laughs and she laughs and they both laugh.

She is out of the car now, and bolts to
His door,  snagging a crumbling shard
Of fender on her pink running shorts
He bursts out of the car and she hugs his waist
"What do we need?!" she exclaims
Hands sliding into his sweat pants.

"Everything!"  He shouts picking her up and spinning
Her round.  "Everything!"

So they skitter, clenched tight to each other, to the store,
Panicking briefly when they realize they have walked
Into the out door instead of the in

Time is their enemy at this point, since everything
Runs at triple speed for them yet everything they
Do takes three times as long

They spin around each other
Three times dodging an old lady hobbling
To get inside

Of course they are behind her and they
Can barely contain themselves as the geezer
Steps surely over the rubberized automatic
Switch

Still not inside
Still not inside
Inside!

But then it is the decision of carts
Should it be the big cart or the little cart
Or do they just need a basket

Each option is carefully considered between
Fits of laughter
Followed by clenching and spinning
They enter the store with no cart and end up past
The cold medicine when they realize their
Folly

"Fuck!"  And he laughs and then she laughs and then they
Both laugh before grabbing onto each other and spinning.

They wander, four hands on the basket handle
Laughing and grabbing and throwing and spinning
Their basket nearly full but they continue on
When you are tweaking you never know what's
Around the next endcap

It could be a cage display of pickles
It could be tampons
It could be your landlord tapping his foot

But it was just Ritz and Cheez Whiz in a jaunty
Holiday display of Santa offering a darn cheezy good
Communion

3 comments:

  1. This might be my favorite poem of yours. It has real motion. Awesome.

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  2. Well thank you, Lisa B.! I am particularly pleased that I worked in "panicked" and an interobang. ;-)

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  3. Wow, that's really good; found myself totally caught up in the movement, as Lisa says. The poem allowed me to travel with them.

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