Shopping

by Gill Baconnier

Email: gill.baconnier@laposte.net

 

Stooping, she lifts the items one by one

from their wire cage. The thin ropes of her hair,

gripped by a relentless slide, are half undone

and brush against the sort of smile a girl would wear.

She shifts her gaze as packets are conveyed

in single file along the endless tread:

the basic stuff of life ingenuously displayed

and double-checked against the list inside her head:

 

bruised apples

broken biscuits

mixed pickles, roughly diced

hard tomatoes

old potatoes

slightly stale white loaf (unsliced)

sour cream

bitter lemons

jar of cook-in sauce (unspiced)

 

something dehydrated in a dented tin

a fruit salad, sinking in its own juice

a quarter pound of tea (in bags, not loose)

a slice of ham, not entirely cured and thin

a Camembert,

so ripe she felt it aching…

 

and finally

despite herself,

perhaps because the yearning sprung so high,

the glorious, wicked toffee-cream-banana pie

that had,

quite simply,

hurtled off the shelf…

 

©2004 Gill Baconnier

 

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