Poem 44

The area in which I live is home to mostly families. I find myself shopping next to people with full carts and dodging kids in aisles. Most times I can get in and out using just the plastic baskets and briskly choosing my items. Sometimes I just need to get too much and the basket is too small, but I use it anyway. Perhaps my refusal to use a cart is due to my ambivalence about "growing up" and starting a family. I think this poem is about the allure and hazard of family life.

Bachelorhood

The supermarket basket
holds the gravity
of two mini-pizzas,
three bananas,
a pint of ice cream,
a loaf of bread it might take
a week for me to use
and a pint of milk,
most of which will find my drain
the driest mouth.
I’m holding it together,
pressing the top pizza down
like a lid.
Fingers aching against handle,
I think about getting a cart with room
for economy-size toilet paper,
a 24-pack of bottled water,
and jumbo bags
of generic Trix.
I cling to my plastic basket like
an anchor in shopping waves,
dragging it to checkout lines.
Hauling myself up on a shore
of Us Weeklies and mints,
I smile at the toddler behind me
riding in her seat on a cart
that would gape
like an empty room
if I pushed the metal
cage from aisle to aisle.