as if lucifer rose
sometimes getting drunk
in the middle of the day in a bar is all right
but instead i’m in the grocery line
the scent of last night’s vodka sniffing through my nose
stuck behind another cotton-headed abomination
someone’s mother yes
someone’s grandmother
far off into the cold, carnal distance of the past
maybe the erotic love of someone’s life
though i doubt it
she’s standing in the middle of the lane
questioning the cost of every item to the cashier
why does the yogurt cost so much?
why the lemonade?
give me back those apples
i’m going to have to think about them
i can’t even get my groceries
on the little conveyor belt because she won’t move
from her incredulous consumptive perch
this is a small problem, true
there are wars
there is suffering
somewhere a thirteen year old girl
is being forced into the submission
of an arranged marriage
how we have an orange-faced
racist maniac running for president
but this is my problem
and i think about bukowski and the shoelace
how it’ll be the small stuff that gets you in the end
not nuclear war or authoritarianism
or about how i’d still need to buy
toilet paper in the event of national socialism
this woman is my shoelace
checking the expiration on the milk for the third time
complaining about the cost of butter for the second time
leaving the line to go and get a bigger bag of rice
like she left the line to go and get some new apples
this is no bar in the middle of the afternoon
hiding in the dark, getting drunk
as assholes make their way outside in the sun
she is no human being
she’s a beast, standing there examining her receipt
so that the cashier can’t even ring up my shit
as if lucifer rose from hell
this fine summer day
to buy coffee on sale and some rotisserie chicken
or to screw with a guy like me
hungover and in need of seltzer
so he can go home and hit the bottle
make his world’s suffering end.
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