No, not the slow whale of country twilight
but rather the palid valley of divorce.
Fields and fields of cauliflowered linoleum where the produce arrives late
and shrivels early. And the men
all in various shades of gone, resemble the big poet
after a long night of weeping. It’s Tuesday morning.
It will be Sunday soon.
I’m doing okay. I’m shopping the sales,
buying the staples, righting the wrongs. My daughters live with me.
—Bringing my cart to a stop, I check my phone
just to make sure that, yes
1/4th cup of milk, 1 tbsp of oil, and 1 cup of dry mix do indeed = pancakes.
I have lain alien in my self so long.
At the James Wright Memorial Price Rite
all the dry mix is heavy to the touch. The next aisle
blurs, beyond me, into dark.
but rather the palid valley of divorce.
Fields and fields of cauliflowered linoleum where the produce arrives late
and shrivels early. And the men
all in various shades of gone, resemble the big poet
after a long night of weeping. It’s Tuesday morning.
It will be Sunday soon.
I’m doing okay. I’m shopping the sales,
buying the staples, righting the wrongs. My daughters live with me.
—Bringing my cart to a stop, I check my phone
just to make sure that, yes
1/4th cup of milk, 1 tbsp of oil, and 1 cup of dry mix do indeed = pancakes.
I have lain alien in my self so long.
At the James Wright Memorial Price Rite
all the dry mix is heavy to the touch. The next aisle
blurs, beyond me, into dark.
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Adam Grabowski's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Blackbird, Ninth Letter, Common Ground Review, and elsewhere. The recipient of a Parent-Writer Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Adam lives in Western Massachusetts where he is the associate poetry editor of The Maine Review.
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