Ruth Taaffe
Panic in the aisles. Unmasked together in a queue
we breathe discretely in opposite directions
no eye contact, ashamed of this synchronised thinking.
Ridiculous whims in the baskets, beans for protein
chocolate for morale. The thought of weeks
without fruit pinpoints an island of claustrophobia
inside, a notion of scurvy voyages east
or west on some wooden clipper. If only they’d had
the Piña des Indes back then. The tin sits
plucked from the shelf, adopted pet in the mesh
stack of yellow halos on the label. We are foreign
to each other. They grow just metres away
in fields, attract hummingbirds and bats. Fierce thistles
becoming flesh, only pickable with thick gloves
then stacked on the back of pick-up trucks
but these would ferment too soon with a smell
brown as vinegar. I’m after something more robust,
some buoyancy aid we can cling to, a sun’s corona, life ring.
