Poem 129

Bruce Springsteen shared a similar fascination in Queen of the Supermarket – which is strange since as far as I know he’s never been to Kilbirnie …

New World

She stands raised up between the orange lino
and the fluorescents
                       queen of the checkouts
where we crowd like refugees in an airport
grab-bags of our trolleys
telling too much

she checks cheques and gazes coolly over our heads
sensitive to the slightest snarl
in the flow ready to name a price
to send her packers like troops against the worst
constrictions to reassign the schoolboys
away from the schoolgirls' checkouts
ruining young love in the paper bags

her hair is black as licorice cut square
lips like radishes in the black-lit
vegetable display
                    pimples mounding softly
under make up

she is control
                a firm hand at the bottleneck
between the sagging fields of shelves
and the cavernous Thursday night
as she wipes ink off her fingers
I sneak peeks at her
through the cigarette
racks