Pickled Herring

June 11 2011

The coupon lady

was counting out change,

then fastidiously arranged

12 items, no less

in a stretchy mesh bag,

fussing about a dozen precious eggs

at the head

of the express line.

A penny dropped

on dull brown linoleum,

rolled, and stopped.

She knew the value of a penny saved, a penny earned,

so there we were

all of us down on hands and knees

searching.

A lucky penny, apparently

irreplaceable.

So I’m guessing luck is a zero sum game,

and the express line

a cruel irony.

Her penny saved, my time to waste

clutching a screw-top-jar of pickled herring

on sale

final day.

Funny, what you find

on a grocery store floor

in high summer

in tourist country.

Sun-screen, gum

a bunch of dusty change,

a coupon for a buck

in pickled herring.

The store manager

wasn’t happy, at all,

banishing the stalled cashier

to shopping carts

and manning the till himself.

But well out of practice,

and with incongruous hands

a blacksmith, or farmer, would have,

his fat finger was poking at numbers

and searching, and hovering

like a hunt-and-peck typist

under the gun.

A penny for his thoughts

  —  I wonder?

The manager

grimly persisting,

the scanner

missing its mark.

Lots of time to go back

get a 2nd jar.