At Least It Wasn’t at the Piggly Wiggly

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

He dreamed he went to A & P . . . and not.

The street was there, but dreamscape, indistinct

In dreams, their weather never quite as hot

And humid as that soup which slinked

Around his boyhood.  Dreaming then begrudged

Him entry so that Mama wasn’t there

At cashiers’ lines where she, loudmouthed, misjudged

The situation so she had to share

Her tawdry housewife agonies to all

Around, they forced to hear them.  So the boy

Beside her shrivelled, chit chat to appall

In tiny Titusville, his heart destroy.

  Gustafsons’ milk and Campbell’s soup cans lined

     The shelves.  Her trite confessions they declined.

© Phillip Whidden