Checkout Love
Poem
The woman in the parking lot reading my palm, loosening the knot, loosening my love line for a euro.
You have an appetite for love, she says. I force my cheek up into a smile. More for its injuries.
My love line, covered in silver skin, stretching out into a leash, choking a longing.
Sounds like the sea on my relaxation playlist, sounds like the wind scouring the surface to redesign a city.
And it’s the people who pass, uncoupled from memory, with dangling cords, who don’t live anywhere anymore, unless it’s a mouth emptied of pleas,
who put a pineapple upside down in their shopping trolley, evoking
the expectation of connection, that something will open
in silence, that something will push back through repetition.
So they run, constantly, carrying still a bit of mum, and maybe dad.
Can’t stay long, moving like tiny swirling tornadoes through aisles,
limbs clicking like clockwork, walking just long enough to feel the distance.
Poem inspired by the recent trend in Spain where singles are using upside-down pineapples in their shopping trolleys hoping to encounter others seeking similar romantic intentions.
