Every Little Helps
He passed on, the fifteenth of last month
just before the Wolf Moon hit its sell by date
stretching a sigh along the Madrid fault line unnoticed.
I'd have to check with my loyalty points
but I'm pretty certain by the barcode recognition;
at the supermarket it was. All the milk half sour
in the incandescent daze of the dairy aisles,
a complication with the refrigeration unit,
the Manager said in a press release published
after verification from a higher authority
at head office to ensure unbreastfed babies
wouldn't be suing the company for compensation.
They're smart, those little bastards, and getting smarter,
don't stop issuing the plastic bags, he was heard to say
under breath recycled from the air-con units,
som nam bew list ically.
I'm sixty three and a bit, it's how I'd like
to be remembered, he said. He wore new shoes,
that was always a sign of progress — functionality.
No need to say anymore, leaving a conversation
as a man leaves footwear in a closet
in a house he means to return to.
I was with him when he gave up disgusted,
a fortunate event to be there in the milk aisle,
reminiscing on gold-tops
and staring at row by row of creme-fraiche
doing rarefied eastern meditation practices
by the skimmed milk. We absorbed each other's
consciousness by the low-fat yoghurt and laughed.
Before the check-out, we were happy as the cows
that come home in the advertisements.
There was a bright white light and neither of us
was quite sure if the fluorescent refrigeration units,
pulsing away to keep the salt free butter hard,
were choking on its own cholesterol. But anyhow,
it didn't matter much. How could it?
The purity and clarity in those eyes, the bliss in goodbye,
there, in the moment as the sirloin stacked in the meat counter
ensured a connection with that other,
helping you spend less every day.
PETER HANDLEY was born in an English village towards the end of the 1960s. He is a poet, actor, writer, director mostly living in Mumbai and working in the Indian cinema industry. He has an interest in the shifting of human consciousness through the sharing of stories told in many forms. He is currently working on a novel about social change in India.
He passed on, the fifteenth of last month
just before the Wolf Moon hit its sell by date
stretching a sigh along the Madrid fault line unnoticed.
I'd have to check with my loyalty points
but I'm pretty certain by the barcode recognition;
at the supermarket it was. All the milk half sour
in the incandescent daze of the dairy aisles,
a complication with the refrigeration unit,
the Manager said in a press release published
after verification from a higher authority
at head office to ensure unbreastfed babies
wouldn't be suing the company for compensation.
They're smart, those little bastards, and getting smarter,
don't stop issuing the plastic bags, he was heard to say
under breath recycled from the air-con units,
som nam bew list ically.
I'm sixty three and a bit, it's how I'd like
to be remembered, he said. He wore new shoes,
that was always a sign of progress — functionality.
No need to say anymore, leaving a conversation
as a man leaves footwear in a closet
in a house he means to return to.
I was with him when he gave up disgusted,
a fortunate event to be there in the milk aisle,
reminiscing on gold-tops
and staring at row by row of creme-fraiche
doing rarefied eastern meditation practices
by the skimmed milk. We absorbed each other's
consciousness by the low-fat yoghurt and laughed.
Before the check-out, we were happy as the cows
that come home in the advertisements.
There was a bright white light and neither of us
was quite sure if the fluorescent refrigeration units,
pulsing away to keep the salt free butter hard,
were choking on its own cholesterol. But anyhow,
it didn't matter much. How could it?
The purity and clarity in those eyes, the bliss in goodbye,
there, in the moment as the sirloin stacked in the meat counter
ensured a connection with that other,
helping you spend less every day.
PETER HANDLEY was born in an English village towards the end of the 1960s. He is a poet, actor, writer, director mostly living in Mumbai and working in the Indian cinema industry. He has an interest in the shifting of human consciousness through the sharing of stories told in many forms. He is currently working on a novel about social change in India.
