Gift Card
The woman ahead of me placed her stuff
on the belt, off-loading in a pattern
I could not seem to discern. She wasn’t
applying the alphabet, that much was
clear, Dawn Anti-Bacterial Dish Soap
ahead of Burt’s Bee’s Dry Skin Salve plunked down
well after a brace of green peppers side
by side among a skyline of boxes
of breakfast cereal.
I was that close
to cracking her scheme wide open when I
was distracted by a rack of gift cards
placed with deliberation, the perfect
ploy, a pleasing grid of gleaming colored
thin plastic rectangles that appeared to
suggest a collectable set. Why not
buy all thirty, seemed to be the message,
display them framed, under glass above the
fireplace, though at that moment I was
wondering what it would feel like to be
in that rack, among those cards, side by side
with Chili’s and VISA and Home Depot
and i Tunes and The Gap. You, unloading
your cart, lost in thought perhaps, giving us
only a cursory glance while I shout
silently from my slot below Sunglass
Hut, vying for your attention, fearful
you won’t notice me there among the rest,
screaming at the top of my lungs, choose me!
i did!
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