So often
potatoes, bananas, bread and eggs
butter, juice, veggies and an entré
become a fascination:
push a shopping cart
trundle through aisles
dodging other shoppers
remembering the list:
potatoes, bananas, bread and eggs
butter, juice, veggies and an entré
drift through the brain
a goal to be attained
the dairy aisle becomes
the summit climbed
because it’s there
potatoes, bananas, bread and eggs
butter, juice, veggies and an entré
so often the same list
the certainty numbs
why not tattoo
that on your forearm
but then
potatoes, bananas, bread and eggs
butter, juice, veggies and an entré
is easily memorized
and the folly
of the indelible
becomes the tragedy
of life avoided
The voice of the poet
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The author appears to have lost his emotional connection to the food he is about to take home, open and fondle, lick, sniff and ultimately consume.
Dear F.U.
It has been such a long time!
You are correct, of course. Shopping has become an abstraction for him.
The idea of tattooing a shopping list to one’s arm struck me as incredibly funny as I was entering Maynard’s yesterday, and I felt I had to use it.
All the best,
Nuncle
Yes! Tattooing- we tend to accept the consumerism of grocery shopping as the only legitimate fetishism involved here. Inscribing the list into your flesh is a nice bit of masochistic sentiment which transforms the grocery shopping experience into a more visceral event. How can we return to the “original pain” of grocery shopping?
Try shopping in a grocery store in Italy, where there seems to be no concept of politely lining up, and bruises from intrusive shopping carts and swung shopping baskets are part of the experience. That might bring back part of the original pain of shopping . . .