Supermarket

I can feel thin muscles under my skin,
stretched tight with cold in the vegetable
section of the supermarket, glossy and
glaring and bright sterile white. I told you
Allen Ginsberg would call us a travesty,
picking out avocadoes with absolutely no
zeal and since you replied that I just
didn’t understand the poem I had to
say well, I’m not sure Allen did either.
That didn’t go over well. We were shaking
our heads while saying yes, running
pale hands over the fuzz of peaches
and the shiny tense skin of so many
kinds of apples—sampling grapes like
the most delicious secret and buying
strange colored fruits with exotic names
and an air of having been better traveled.
We don’t make eye contact when I
get the celery and you the tomatoes,
when I pick out pea pods and you
tell me you hate peas, put them
back. Put them back, put them
back. Every item builds upon the
ones before it and the glass rattles
in the windowpanes and we check
out with a cart full of produce. We
never look back until at home,
in bed at two o’clock in the
afternoon, you feeling my muscles
tightening around myself and you
pushing back against me and biting
my lips so they spill blood
dark as pomegranates, you
tell me you’re not sure
there’s even anything to understand.
We eat the coconut you
split with a hatchet
in bed with my cold feet in your lap.
We are nothing if not something,