as profound as walking in a grocery store

as profound as walking in a grocery store
(an installment of poetic reportage from dark-Phoenix)

Today out here
at the dollar store
we are buying
59 ¢ cans of corn

the cans are dented but selling steadily
the risk of -??-  – something – salmonella? Botulism?
is worth the 20¢ savings.
and anyway doesn’t exist in the third world
or the second
or the seventh heaven

And yes, god, I am wallowing a bit.
but I bought four white peaches for a dollar.

the dusk sky tries to balance things for me
presenting an open field of fading ten-tone-blue,
a sky-wide cleft
notated by three giant ornaments
inverted bruised apricot-orange mountains
levitate –
shaded purple and black in 100 charcoals
Their upended roots spreading to the sky in an open-handed offering

or is it surprise?

Today out here everyone has a fucked up foot
seriously self-sorry and leaving the dullard store
I spied a club foot displayed at the end of stiff worker’s jeans
Its owner obscured behind an open rusted trunk.

huge Munsters heel and industrial metal brace
like an accessory to poverty

which is a leading cause for arrest in this white city barrio:

accessory to poverty.

and in the land of the free if you’re poor
you many not even have the privilege
of walking without punishment
without a little reminder of who you are
and what body you’re in
every
other
step.

A few minutes later, after the sky revealed itself
or I should say I was able to see it
I pulled into the low-class grocery store
to finish spending money I couldn’t spend.

In the hot parking lot the asphalt was humming, vibrating.
I saw from behind a tiny, older Asian lady
walking with a pronounced limp.

as I got closer I noticed
her motion was informed
by a literal peg-leg
like something a pirate would wear
but made of clear plastic

was it from some discount prosthetics store?

O God sometimes you are not subtle.
And yes that is both sides

o
f

a

B
L
A
D
E
– – –

(written in Fry’s at 19th Ave and Camelback 7.30 pm 8-25-09 at a fold out “career opportunities” desk with borrowed pen and paper and a bad hand cramp. Where do I turn in this application?)

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