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Stuck Inside the Supermarket with the Beautiful Blues Again
My wife told me to find the onion crisps
for a green bean casserole she was making
for Easter dinner at my parents’ house.
Perplexed, I confessed I had no idea where
to start the search for the onion crisps
and suggested we sauté a raw onion instead.
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she said and rolled
her eyes and sent me on the quixotic quest.
So I roamed the aisles, Ancient Mariner-style,
and found myself behind a beautiful couple
in their late-twenties, olive-skinned and fit,
as they whisked past the chocolate cake mix
holding hands, their shopping cart filled
with fresh vegetables and fish and goat cheeses
but no onion crisps or cream of mushroom soup
or any hint of the makings of a casserole.
Then Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile
with the Memphis Blues Again” started to play
in my head, entering like a silk-footed thief,
and I hummed it a decimal above the soft-rock
that fell like syrupy summer rain from the ceiling.
The beautiful couple turned at the end of the aisle
and went on to live beautiful lives and birth
beautiful kids, and I never found the onion crisps.
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About the Author: Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire, with his wife. A high school teacher, he’s the author of nine books of fiction and poetry. Fly Like The Seagull, his most recent work of fiction, was released by Luchador Press in 2020. Graziano also writes a column for Manchester Ink Link and was named the 2020 Columnist of Year by the New Hampshire Press Association. For more information, visit his website: www.nathangraziano.com.
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Image Credit: Thomas J. O’Halloran “Shopping in supermarket” (1957) The Library of Congress (Public Domain)
As It Ought To Be 