In Praise of Grocery Shoppers

by Daniel Donaghy

Winding through the aisles
with my oversized cart,

I smile at everyone:
the pink-haired stock clerk

bobbing to a song streaming
through her AirPods;

the blue-lipped toddler
soothed by a rocket popsicle

his mom pulled from its box,
red and blue food coloring

melting down his forearms;
the grandmother slumped

over her cart of watermelon,
garden gloves, and paper towels,

pen in one hand,
shopping list in the other.

Everyone’s here to load up
for someplace else and I love

to imagine those places:
a kitchen counter where

a man’s basket of ground beef
and pickles becomes hamburgers

grilling over charcoal
while kids flick a Frisbee

and his phone plays
a song whose chorus

he has tattooed on his arm;
a pantry stocked with staples

that will bring together
at a round glass table

that couple over there
and their three kids,

each of whom tries to drop
different cookies into the cart;

a terrace off a tiny apartment,
a tray of olives and cheese,

hummus and pita sliced
into triangles at the feet

of young lovers while
a neighbor’s dog barks

and traffic whooshes
below them. So much

locks us alone in the loop
of our days. Here’s one

place we share, where
need mixes with desire,

where whispers all ask
the same things:

Did you want anything else?
What else do we need?

What was that thing
I told you not to let me forget?

 

Daniel Donaghy is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Somerset, which was named co-winner of the 2019 Paterson Poetry Prize. His previous poetry collections include Start with the Trouble (University of Arkansas Press, 2009), winner of the University of Arkansas Poetry Prize and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and a Finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, and Streetfighting (BkMk Press, 2005), a Paterson Poetry Prize Finalist. He earned a BA in English from Kutztown University, an MA in English/Creative Writing from Hollins College (now University), an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Cornell University, and a PhD in English from the University of Rochester. Donaghy was awarded the 2022 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize for his poem about the Tulsa Race Massacre, “Tulsa Triptych,” which he made into a film, Greenwood: A Dreamland Destroyed, with Brian Day, Alycia-Bright-Holland, and Jeff Calissi that won Best Featured Documentary at the Indianapolis Black Documentary Film Festival. A stage production he wrote about the Ocoee Race Massacre and the history of African American voter suppression, The Ocoee Project, directed by Brian Day and staged by Kristen Morgan, was performed at Eastern Connecticut State University October 15-20, 2024. He is a Professor of English and the 2023 University Distinguished Professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he edits Here: a poetry journal with his students. His creative non-fiction essay “Fire,” first published in The Sun, was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2024. His short fiction has appeared in Missouri Review, Quarterly West, South Carolina Review, and other journals. He grew up in Philadelphia, PA, which has inspired much of his work.