John Grochalski

american cupcakes

 

we eat

canned corn

 

and cupcakes colored

with the american flag

 

and i have been in this line

longer than it took me

to pick out my groceries

 

the cashier is a trainee

with unruly hair

and the touch of a moustache

 

he’s seventeen and thinks he’s funny

 

he’s so funny

he can’t ring up a head of lettuce

or a bag of chips

without telling a joke

 

america must always suffer

the indignity of funny men

 

i look at him

 

he is like the slowly rotting meat

in my cart

 

one day he’ll probably be the manager here

 

he tells another bad joke

 

i think of walking away

and leaving all of the groceries

 

but there is nothing in my home

except cold vodka and stale popcorn

 

it is too hot today

to willingly starve

 

and i’m not in the mood for protest

 

so i stand there and sweat

as no one but the cashier laughs

 

looking at another week’s worth of food

splayed out on the counter

 

bought to feed another week

of this ceaseless horseshit

 

looking at the american cupcakes

wrapped in non-biodegradable plastic

 

that the cashier

casually crushes

with a case of warm soda

 

with the same jokey manner

and nonchalant ease

 

that he has used to crush

this afternoon

 

and all of our souls.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In the Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), and Eating a Cheeseburger During End Times (Kung Fu Treachery, 2021). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016), and P-Town: Forever (Alien Buddha Press, 2021). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can read his baseball card ramblings at his Junk Wax Jay blog https://junkwaxjay.blogspot.com/