Though I don't notice until after I get home,
that's what it says at the very top
of my receipt, from when I went to the Asian
grocery to buy yellow mangos, loose
carrots, three bundles of ramen
to share with my daughters, a bag
of bok choy. He bagged them for me, too:
there being long lines and not enough
personnel. That day, the shelves
were still full of toilet paper. Shrimp
with heads on sat bundled in plastic,
half-buried in ice. Children touched
everything in the fruit section:
the green spikes of durian, red frills
of dragonfruit; satsumas resting on
their own leaves. Jesus could've been
their cashier too— We'll look
back on this day and think of it
as the surest sign of our days being
reckoned, added up at the till.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
