Cabernet Sauvignon, Ghirardelli, Belgioioso…

My cart is almost empty

except for the bottles of wine,
dark chocolate, Fontina cheese,
and a large box of Stuart Hall envelopes.

The check-out woman

at the ten-items-or-less chute
rings them up and then asks me
for my driver’s license and telephone number.

Instead, I give her my "binder" of poems,

that I carry with me, and she begins reading…
Soon the checker in the next aisle
is browsing over her shoulder and then

the bagger and a woman behind him.

Several grocery carts are revving up behind us,
and someone is shouting something unintelligible
about public pension reform.

I want to ask all of them to escape with me,

perhaps move to a writer’s colony somewhere
in Vermont or New Hampshire where we can
all capture “Negative Capability” together,

but my wife is waiting at home,

and my daughter is probably hungry.
Besides, my poems will have
the wrong return address on them.