my former boss, my flaunting ex-wife’s lover. If I should pick the longest checkout line, red-necked sicky hacking loudly next to me behind a fur-lined tart with overflowing cart, will some purblind darter skid and thwack my knee.
Will the checker chatter to her friend, slow things down, would frown or batting eyes entice a roughneck confrontation, will the package price be different from the screen, can’t be mean, what if I can’t find the service desk. Returning home through rain, airheads turning left without a signal, running reds, slide from lane to lane, dash insanely through the stops, crash my driver’s side, how long until the churning jaws of life will rescue me. Maybe I should grab a cab but will he even find my street if he never shows, I’ll wait in feet of snow all day will the nipper try to go a longer way to rip me off, and if he blabbers something hateful, tasteless, racist, will it lead to confrontation, my retaliation: tiny tip, not a peep, two days later, ripped, cerrated, broken windows of my house, duck from stones thrown yoked to paper: fuck you cheap skate, fuck you louse, unleash a pack of dholes to hack apart my living room, attack me in an alley, bash my brain, doomed to bleed to death, position moles to spy on me, report my sins, accused of greed and torts, I confess, assorted pain begins. The sidewalk glows a pink wet gray, snow and sirens all day long, every fearful what-could-go-wrong before my eyes, I do not dare to go.
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