—those instant coffee pouches made by
the corporation us leftists pretend
to hate
—that cereal that rakes the roof of your mouth
but makes you nostalgic for childhood
—that can of mixed nuts that doesn’t contain
peanuts because if you buy one
that contains peanuts then it will
contain about 70% peanuts because
peanuts are cheaper, yes, but don’t taste
anywhere as good as cashews,
walnuts, almonds, and those little
green ones
—lactose-free milk because the ability to digest
lactose is mostly a Northern European
trait and you’re not Northern European
—100% wheat bread, though you distrust
anything that claims to be 100%
of anything because it reeks
of religious, political, and cultural
fundamentalism
—grape jelly, even though you read somewhere
that the FDA allows a jar of jelly to have
like 27 insect parts, and that’s disgusting,
but all of us will be eating crickets, ants,
and mealworms after the apocalypse,
so maybe you should think of eating
slightly infested jelly as practice
for an unpredictable future
—natural peanut butter, and yes, this contradicts
your opinion of peanuts, but peanut is
to peanut butter as tomato is to ketchup
—AAA batteries, but wait, no, maybe you need
AA batteries, shit, okay, buy both types
—a dozen eggs, but don’t check to see if
any of them are broken because you
like to gamble and it’s like playing
the lottery or, God, don’t say this
aloud, it’s like playing twelve
simultaneous games of chicken
—a box of those cheap cigars, which you
never smoke but purchase maybe twice
a year because they remind you
of your late father
—a bag of toilet paper rolls even though
they are less expensive at Target
but you have no plans to go
to Target anytime soon so you
might as well buy them here
—a pack of Big League Chewing Gum
because it reminds you
of that walk-off home run
that Joe Carter hit to win
the World Series in 1993
—a bouquet of tulips to put on your
mother’s grave, though she’s not
dead, so you lean the flowers
against your mother’s front door
at 2 a.m so they fall into the house
in the morning when she goes out
to grab the morning paper, and
you’ve done this maybe a dozen
times since your father died,
and it makes your mother laugh
and mourn and feel beloved
—make another list of everything
you’ve ever forgotten to put on
a grocery list and that will remind
you of all the times you loved
somebody who didn’t love you back.
Grocery List