Open 24 Hours - Jan 19 2023

 

Open 24 Hours

Jan 19 2023

It's quiet

at 3 am

in the all-night supermarket.

A couple of stockers

are blocking an aisle

stacking boxed and canned goods;

young guys

who aren't in any rush

joshing with each other

and talking sports.

A tired-looking woman

at the only open till

has both elbows on the conveyor

and is fiddling with her phone.

Stuck with the midnight shift

she'd rather be busy than bored,

and is probably wondering

if a buck-fifty-an-hour more

was worth staying up for.

Music plays,

but softer and slower

than during the day.

As if filling this vast unpeopled place

with sound

will make it feel more welcoming

less vacant.

I am wheeling my cart

through the frozen food section,

a night owl

out of sync with the world

as usual.

My car

marooned in an empty parking lot

is cooling down,

windows frosting over

snow piling up.

The lot is lit like a prison yard,

a bright white light

that's grim and unforgiving.

But the freshly falling snow

softens it,

and the asphalt

which is broken and black

and littered with plastic cups and fast food bags

is becoming almost beautiful.

At least inside

it's warm and dry.

The music, which is kind of melancholy

doesn't seem all that bad

after a while.

And the two kibitzing guys

have added some life;

good company, I think

if I’d been 30 years younger.

The cart has a wobbly wheel

keeps pulling to one side.

An entire store

of idle carts

and I manage to pick a bad one.

I wrote this immediately after reading After Second Shift (see below), which was today's offering in Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac. I apologize if my poem is too derivative and unoriginal. Jaeger chose a different theme (mine is more loneliness, his more pathos), but both pieces are atmospheric, and it was that -- the setting -- that caught my imagination. I think I'm very partial to descriptive scene-setting poems like this, poems that rest on close observation and the telling detail.

After Second Shift

by Lowell Jaeger

She’s stopped to shop for groceries.

Her snow boots sloshing

up and down the aisles, the store

deserted: couple stock boys

droning through cases of canned goods,

one sleepy checker at the till.

In the parking lot, an elderly man

stands mumbling outside his sedan,

all four doors wide to gusting sleet

and ice. She asks him, Are you okay?

He’s wearing pajama pants, torn slippers,

rumpled sport coat, knit wool hat.

Says he’s waiting for his wife.

I just talked to her on the payphone

over there. He’s pointing at

the Coke machine. What payphone?

she says. That one, he says.

It’s cold, she says, and escorts him inside.

Don’t come with lights

and sirens, she tells the 9-1-1

dispatcher. You’ll scare him.

They stand together. The checker

brings him a cup of coffee.

They talk about the snow.

So much snow.

They watch for the cop.

This night, black as any night,

or a bit less so.

After Second Shift by Lowell Jaeger from Or Maybe I Drift Off Alone. © Shabda Press, 2016.