Supermarket

It’s 3 PM

I just finished sleeping off

A hangover.

I got four hours to kill until

My shift starts

At the guard house

At the garage on Canal Street.

No food in the house

So I drove to

Tony’s Supermarket.

Tony knows me,

So I get my stuff half off.

If he’s in a good mood, that is.

Thank God for Medical Cannabis.

All I need is a can of chilli and a fork

I can cook with my car’s cigarette lighter,

They don’t teach skills like that at school,

No wonder kids these days can’t get work.

I never used a Pythagorean Theory

At UPS.

I get my can of chilli and a bag of

Plastic forks,

Look around like a schmo at an art fair,

Then I hear the crash.

The next aisle over is where the commotion is,

A local Cicero/Berwin mutant and her

Three little shits,

Two running around

And one in the basket

Sucking his teeth.

One little turd

Is hugging a sack

Of Hershey Bars

Squealing incoherently.

Mama mutant,

200 pounds of lard and bone

Barks back,

Both make a cacophony

Of noise, possibly English.

She sticks her fancy shake

From the out of place

Vegan restaurant in the front

Something she can carry like

A pimp cup from Evanston.

It’s entertainment around here,

One mutant takes out his camera

And starts taking pictures,

I saw these at a makeshift gallery

In some guy’s alley.

One shitty print of tonight’s drama

Sold for 40 bucks.

I ignored most of this and went to pay.

What do you,

Big Mama Mutant

And her little shits

Are in front of me,

A month’s worth of

High-Fructose Crap in their cart

Only aisle open, lucky me.

I’m just standing there,

can of chili and forks

and this lady barks at the youngyans

while dealing with the Mestizo lady

At the cash register.

Now that her cart-full of crap

Is bagged and ready,

She pays with her EBT card.

She didn’t even buy

The sack of Hershey bars,

She won’t hear the end of it

From Junior.

I got time to kill,

But I ain’t killing it here any longer.