originally published in Whole Terrain, 2003


The Next Customer

September 14, 2001

Begin with an empty basket

and tomato-red banknotes. Go ahead,

buy yourself out of crisis.

At least I chose produce, not

say, perfume or ammunition,

and marched the market aisles

for new-born bread swaddled in tissue

the color of buttercups my imaginary cows

dined on, excreting cheeses

decorated with hay and paprika.

I tried to analyze the special effects

of 11 am sun on the tomato’s stretched and

mottled skin, the dark green zeniths

bent against the stem, the shriveled

stars that connect the fruit to its current,

the shadow of my hand wanting

to snatch it. Could a tomato

erase the shame of being linked

to the human branch of things,

dangling from it, overripe,

ready to rot off? See, objects

can embody what we need—

I pick a split one, a deformed, clumsy

heart-shaped blob, thinking,

when did I last choose a factory second,

ruminate its ruined surface?

Transactions as far as the eye can see—

I say the scene’s displayed for me,

the light on the lettuce man’s forearms

as he wraps my bouquet,

the Hey-yo!s and Profitez!s,

the little burden of a tomato

safe in its paper sack, that begging

accordion man, the lady scraping dog shit

from her pump, me and the next customer

and the next saved from the cordons

of remorse that can stretch across the skull.

Spend it all down, I say,

to the final rounds lonesome in your pocket,

all the silver, all the bronze.