Elise Poem by Daniel Karbon

If I ever do kill myself
It'll be in the middle of a supermarket
A cheap one
One that sells frozen food, DVDs, and women's underwear, too
One that keeps the cigarettes locked away
Where the children can't get them
And keeps the cough medicine
In a big plastic bin
Next to the Junior Mints
The kind of supermarket that pays Elise,
The shift manager
Just barely enough
To keep her lights on
And her Life magazine in the mail
Maybe next month she'll pick up some overtime
And make enough to pay a man to run a cable
From her television to a radio dish
That he'll nail to her balcony
She might even flirt with him
Lay out on the sofa,
With its upholstery blue and tattered
Like the Gulf of Mexico.
It's been so long since she's done anything she could really be ashamed of.
Since she's done anything more then ask lost young men like me
If she could help them find anything

It's been so long since I've had an answer
To that question.