Shopping at Hy-Vee
"Shopping at Hy-Vee"
This is likely the last time I'll push a shopping cart
through the bright, bland fluoresence of Hy-Vee
for months; the last time I will stare at long aisles
of breakfast cereals and cases of off-brand cola,
plasticware and bags of flavorless, rock-like pretzels.
I will not see the faded red stitches on blue caps
that proudly proclaim EMPLOYEE OWNED,
their quiet clarion against the competition uptown.
No, for me it's back to the land of Schnucks and Dierbergs,
stores foreign to the northeast,
built for smaller areas with fuller parking lots.
I guide the squeaking cart towards produce,
Considering bananas, or a case of grapples
(whatever those are.)
Watermelons are on sale, a seasonal favorite
marked with a yellow sign, which like all the rest
is so bright it seems dull.
I've never liked watermelons; something in the texture,
the little black seeds, the leftover rine
which seems like bad design in retrospect;
something about the summer days to come,
hollow smiles at company picnics,
lying in a too-hot-to-sleep room that was once mine,
longing for a little town and a fresh apple.
-5-15-06, though probably composed somewhere around the end of April
This is likely the last time I'll push a shopping cart
through the bright, bland fluoresence of Hy-Vee
for months; the last time I will stare at long aisles
of breakfast cereals and cases of off-brand cola,
plasticware and bags of flavorless, rock-like pretzels.
I will not see the faded red stitches on blue caps
that proudly proclaim EMPLOYEE OWNED,
their quiet clarion against the competition uptown.
No, for me it's back to the land of Schnucks and Dierbergs,
stores foreign to the northeast,
built for smaller areas with fuller parking lots.
I guide the squeaking cart towards produce,
Considering bananas, or a case of grapples
(whatever those are.)
Watermelons are on sale, a seasonal favorite
marked with a yellow sign, which like all the rest
is so bright it seems dull.
I've never liked watermelons; something in the texture,
the little black seeds, the leftover rine
which seems like bad design in retrospect;
something about the summer days to come,
hollow smiles at company picnics,
lying in a too-hot-to-sleep room that was once mine,
longing for a little town and a fresh apple.
-5-15-06, though probably composed somewhere around the end of April