I shop for lovely strangers
bathed in the fluorescence of grocery store light
Even after midnight
the Vons/Ralphs/Albertsons/Gelsons
sun is flickering down
like the faulty film-reels
of junior high health class,
making all of our frames bright and unsteady
Drifting down aisles of olives and toothpaste
inhaling the ether of shopping lists while with numb feet
consumers forge ahead in a fog
and fail to read labels,
their product-grabbing resistance
to an overflow of sales pitches
pitched as information
I shop for the phosphorescent
white-wash gleam reflected from clean tile floors
where skin tones, like moth’s wings,
flutter inconsistently past frozen foods,
lackluster and chilled
The equity in their rituals is comforting to me,
everyone shopping for milk ends up in the same place
I watch them pour mental measurements
into memorized recipes,
having left their kitchens only physically
to join others in advertising their inconsistencies:
construction workers buying green beans
the woman who reminds me of an unassuming grandma
and her basket full of dragon fruit flamboyance
a ten-year-old with so much cayenne pepper
I love them all equally
Shoppers drop their personas to indulge deeper desires
like the people with lima bean postures
who still buy Fruit Loops
while they think no one’s looking
They push paradoxical philosophies
in carts with three wheels that roll straight
and one that drifts – a clicking metronome
to synchronize consumer habits
I shop for eye contact,
for attention that accidentally drifts
from shelves of unnecessities
then darts back, almost apologetically,
to too many ground coffee options
I’m seeking enlightenmen
beyond the all-night blinding Halogen glow
but there is no ray of hope
brighter than the supermarket glare