Life’s a Supermarket with Expiring Goods

A child quietly screaming, veins
pulse towards a motherly shadow.
Bruised face, red-purple, like
the discolored arms and legs of
heroin addicts from countless years
before and to come.

The child stares my way, an
innocent, isolated alien abandoned
three planets from the sun.

Token thoughts of the saddest kind
were given to the juvenile moped riders,
the helmetless children of pavement
and cement. A crescent raceway
designated for the speed and superegos
of calloused emotions, hard-headed
drivers of remote-controlled cars and
baby whispers.

I walk past normal spectacles of any day.
A confusion jamboree tornadoed among
the weak, dedicated, and elderly.

In the marketplace, in the produce and
deli sections, the dog of consumers’ souls
waits at the end of a rusted chain.
A slobbering guardian.

Jaw lock.
Kill

In line first, but forgot to grab a ticket
with a number printed on it.

“The line starts back here,” some guy says.