I am shopping for Thursday dinner, alone
down the Mexican aisles. Here
there are flash-frozen tilapia, gutted
half chickens in pyramid piles, eggs
with the skid marks of laying,
no cranberries for saucing but I am happy
for what I can’t find, ripe for them
to hold me like a softening avocado.
They are a Tuesday away from me,
packing Nick’s toys, bundling Riggs’
and Riley’s Battleship and Pokeman games,
soon to drive down from Santa Barbara. Hours
remain, yet I hear the key turn, the Odyssey’s purr,
the blanket of night warming their journey
like a cocoon they will burst from,
my bright children, tumbling forth
to find Baja’s bougainvillea and me.
This aisle holds tins of alote, another
bins of mangoes, limones, piña, naranja,
and as they lower a window the scents
of Baja will enter. There is a sea breeze
on the Interstate, sailing them south
where they will taste me, know
the great pod at my green center,
the split and the shoot, the fruit
of me with me again – and we will feast.
~
[after Night Flight by George Bilgere from Ted Kooser’s ALP, Nov. 23, 2009 – last edit Nov. 24, 2009]
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