Grocery Store
A man in the produce section recited my words backâ his voice competing with sprinklers cycling on and off, a mechanical hiss every forty seconds. He changed some words. Where I'd left a gap, he'd sealed it with a period.
Glass tubes hummed above us both. Rows of apples under plastic wrap, red skins already sweating from the cold.
I watched his mouth reshape my sentences. Like watching someone try on your jacket & have it fit better than it ever fit you.
The eggs in my hands were cracked along one side. I could feel the yolk slidingânot quite separated, everything suspended in the thin shell. Cold from the dairy case making my fingers numb. He didn't ask. He took the pause I'd left thereâ a silenceâ& filled it with his own breathing.
Now when I read what I wrote, I hear him in between my lines. Placing his hand on the back of my neck while I'm eating. I can't taste anything except the weight of his palm.
Sprinklers cycle again. Everything dripping. My poem. His words. Eggs that will never set. standing in the aisle unable to move forward, unable to put anything down.
