Personal Injury Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

How clumsy I had been.
For me, the strapping athlete,
to fall inside the supermarket.
Feet up, right near the cucumbers
and with a gaggle of tomatoes,
a cache of brussel sprouts,
twelve hundred leaves of iceberg,
and Bimbo with green apron,
all looking on, observing, on edge
of breaking out in raucous laughter.
The smirk was building now,
so, with a funeral director's face,
I picked myself off the slick floor,
composing all the systems as I rose,
and then pronounced, and just in time
as the greengrocer manager arrived,
full blown and chalk-white devastation
in a face that knew, this was the USA.
'It's a P.I.', I said and all knew what I meant.