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The only poem I will ever explain.
Saturday night at Unbroken Bones, the evening's poet read a poem he'd written as an homage to Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California. It's about Ginsberg seeing Walt Whitman at the supermarket.
This poet wrote about seeing another Indianapolis poet at the grocery, and my mind tried to imagine Emily Bronte grocery shopping, but mostly she complained about Charlotte. Then I tried to picture Millay, but she had someone--maybe many someones--doing her shopping for her.
And then I wrote this.
Why I never approach Shirley Jackson when I see her at the Safeway
When I see Shirley Jackson at the supermarket, there is always at least one child with her:
the baby.
Shirley shops without a grocery list.
She doesn't need a list to buy her family's food, she's been doing this a long time. Muscle memory takes over, and while her hands find cans of peaches and lima beans, tomatoes and sauerkraut,
her mind tosses words into the air like shiny coins, and watches them twist in the air,
then
hesitate
before they land,
the quarters spinning and rolling,
the slim dimes balanced on their edges,
the pennies floating just above the linoleum.
The baby grabs a chocolate bar from a shelf and sticks it in her mouth, wrapper and all. Shirley absently removes it from her wet mouth,
places in her pudgy hands a few tarot cards from her dress pocket.
She puts a pot roast in the cart, a bar of soap.
The words are falling into place.
They're seeds now, daisies and carnations, corn-flowers and pansies and phlox,
common flowers that will become
oblique,
abstruse,
mysterious blossoms when Shirley Jackson sows them in her perfect rows—
rows as straight as the stitches from her sewing machine—
narrow rows that lead you around in circles
until you are
dizzy
lost
enraptured.
Shirley adds pork chops to her cart,
a can of coffee,
a carton of cigarettes.
A box of safety matches.
She gets in line to check out. Takes the cards from the baby—the Sun soggy, the Lovers torn nearly in half—and gives her back the candy bar (sans wrapper).
The garden is nearly finished.
Shirley Jackson pays for her groceries, smiling and making small talk with the cashier
(whom she will write about on another day)
and walks home, the baby on one hip, a paper bag on the other.
With no free hand to write with, the words must stay in her head until she reaches home.
By the time she gets there, the garden will be in full bloom,
ready to beguile the unsuspecting.
Saturday night at Unbroken Bones, the evening's poet read a poem he'd written as an homage to Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California. It's about Ginsberg seeing Walt Whitman at the supermarket.
This poet wrote about seeing another Indianapolis poet at the grocery, and my mind tried to imagine Emily Bronte grocery shopping, but mostly she complained about Charlotte. Then I tried to picture Millay, but she had someone--maybe many someones--doing her shopping for her.
And then I wrote this.
Why I never approach Shirley Jackson when I see her at the Safeway
When I see Shirley Jackson at the supermarket, there is always at least one child with her:
the baby.
Shirley shops without a grocery list.
She doesn't need a list to buy her family's food, she's been doing this a long time. Muscle memory takes over, and while her hands find cans of peaches and lima beans, tomatoes and sauerkraut,
her mind tosses words into the air like shiny coins, and watches them twist in the air,
then
hesitate
before they land,
the quarters spinning and rolling,
the slim dimes balanced on their edges,
the pennies floating just above the linoleum.
The baby grabs a chocolate bar from a shelf and sticks it in her mouth, wrapper and all. Shirley absently removes it from her wet mouth,
places in her pudgy hands a few tarot cards from her dress pocket.
She puts a pot roast in the cart, a bar of soap.
The words are falling into place.
They're seeds now, daisies and carnations, corn-flowers and pansies and phlox,
common flowers that will become
oblique,
abstruse,
mysterious blossoms when Shirley Jackson sows them in her perfect rows—
rows as straight as the stitches from her sewing machine—
narrow rows that lead you around in circles
until you are
dizzy
lost
enraptured.
Shirley adds pork chops to her cart,
a can of coffee,
a carton of cigarettes.
A box of safety matches.
She gets in line to check out. Takes the cards from the baby—the Sun soggy, the Lovers torn nearly in half—and gives her back the candy bar (sans wrapper).
The garden is nearly finished.
Shirley Jackson pays for her groceries, smiling and making small talk with the cashier
(whom she will write about on another day)
and walks home, the baby on one hip, a paper bag on the other.
With no free hand to write with, the words must stay in her head until she reaches home.
By the time she gets there, the garden will be in full bloom,
ready to beguile the unsuspecting.