Supermarket Surfer
— after Allen Ginsberg
what bohunkian images i have of you
crash against my niggernoggin as i shiver and stroll
long air-conditioned aisles at 2 a.m. the liquor
1 under lock and key, the lettuce full and moist with
a fresh spray of mist and neon
my cart wobbles giddily on crooked wheels as i sputter
between the confused and the absurd as i cruise for pudding
and citrus-free hand lotion. there's plenty of disabled
parking outside. it is lonely here though the
automatic doors never close and a bleak phosphorescence
never dims and bananas are going at two pounds for
the price for one. the bin of avocados is small
and most of them more like plankton-stained golf balls
or too rotten. somewhere, i am detected via camera
lens while picking over pepper mills between
the spice racks and the baking soda
hang ten toward checkout is a certainty
the only Walt here is Disney
the pork chops are killing me
i am a nobody angel
my heart is a frozen delicacy
Wanda Coleman, "Supermarket Surfer" from Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems. Copyright © 2020 by Wanda Coleman. Reprinted by permission of The Estate of Wanda Coleman, Black Sparrow / David R Godine, Publisher, Inc., godine.com.
Source:
Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems
(Black Sparrow Press (Godine), 2020)
