Move your damned basket!
Don’t you know people
are trying to get in,
and here you stand, big
as an elephant in the way,
reading your stupid list.
She slaloms through
like a driver in a traffic jam
who thinks if she forces
into every space, her
destination will appear
like the ocean after smelling
it for miles.
Good God! Why did they make
those humongous plastic car carts!?
No one can get around them in the aisles,
and those children grab
like novice pickpockets, so much
I want to grab their little wrists
and squeeze permanent handcuff scars
for them to remember me by.
At last she self-checks out,
so fast the automated checker voice
slurs thanks, and the receipt it spits out
is ripped from its teeth as the woman
almost plows into the automatic door
that hesitated longer than usual
just for her.
