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Supermarket in Autumn
Rains enter the supermarket,
the relief of rain washing
the epidermal layer
of insects off foods, off
rows of cans, pink
and green in their skins.
Muted monologues,
supermarket checkers, heads
bowed over scanners, they grab
the frozen meat,
its resin-baked bones.
Nodding, blowing, rows and rows
of ripening corn reach out.
The stands of corn silk wave,
wave in the cornstalk wind.
Rise and fall of land, etched,
crisscrossed with crops,
soaked with rain, dried, soaked again.
The women are weeders, gatherers,
their hands bend and pull.
Children, asleep in carts,
mouth words to break the dark.
So much is seasonal, so much
drift; fish float belly up.
Loons hoot over the lake, rocks
split the sound. 
Supermarket in Autumn
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