Corner Grocery
Feb 3 2009


Whole chickens
goose-bumped, plucked,
stubby wings tucked
against pale fatty flesh.
And two plump breasts
all puffed-up,
to tempt the peckish passer-by
entice the gluttonous.

And fish on ice
glassy-eyed
scales losing their lustre,
their powerfully muscled sides
yielding
to a razor-thin knife
— gutted, sliced, and fried.

And vegetables
I do not recognize
under Chinese signs,
among strangled ducks and pickled eggs,
and ginger, in the shape of men,
and the strident tones of Mandarin
that fill the air,
sharp and pinched
like an emphatically jabbing finger.

The shopkeeper hustles me in
with his proud pigeon English,
where pungent smells envelop me
and men smoke unrepentantly,
waving tight spirals of smoke
as they speak,
intently puffing.
He beams
with tar-stained teeth,
2 gold ones
gleaming;
streaks of blood
not quite bleached from his apron.