Tireless Hunt For Food At Safeway Poem by Bernard Henrie

The tomatoes are turning geriatric,
cantaloupe this late in the season
near cardiac arrest; the deaf plums
purple as a king's robe.

Food bins to ransack; kosher cheese
strips delivered by jet plane
from Jerusalem, I spy on Kleenex
sunning under flourescent lights.

My image appears in the meat case,
red cap on sideways, long hair, gold
and yellow Hawaiian shirt, Navy ship
tattoo on my bicep;

I am an aborgine gathering food
for a wife in her tweed business suit
and my child, nose-deep
in algebra.











The tomatoes are turning geriatric,
cantaloupe this late in the season
near cardiac arrest; the deaf plums
purple as a king's robe.

I hunt for food, ransack storage bins;
cradle impeccable pears from Jerusalem
flown in by jet plane. I spy on boxes
of stout yellow noodles;

weigh the cleaning powders,
caress long grain rice in see-through
cellophane; seductive blue Kleenex
scentless under the flourescent lights;

I see my image in the meat case,
red cap on sideways, long hair, Navy
ship tattoo on my bicep; a salmon
unbearably dead stares back.

Dusk comes to the supermarket.
I am an aborigine gathering food
for a wife in her business suit
and my child, nose-deep in algebra.