,

Snacks


I am a small clean piglet 
Snout pressed against the knuckles of life 
In vain hope of a sugar cube 
It’s ten years since I’ve left the country and still I have
recurring dreams of roaming foreign supermarkets staring at a jar of pickles 
like it’s the face of Our Lady, Star of the Sea 
solemnly analysing the condiments and 
crossing myself before the noodles 
and I miss the cultural signifiers and subliminal promises of the packaging 
in gleaming red and blue with their proud stripes and thrilling starbursts
I miss the inexplicable candy and the muffled piles of bread 
and the benevolent anointing numbness of the fluorescent lights 
it’s one large gift shop and my heart is the tour guide 
I miss the snacks 
and it’s been so long that I wonder if I was ever there at all and 
my feet are glued to the ground now and the fluorescent light and uncharming price-points 
of our own supermarkets makes my brain itch and my skin grow wrinkled and floppy 
And my father leans across the table and explains that there’s a new internet joke 
where you call people “Karen” and he’s convinced the sauce in canned spaghetti is cut with pumpkin ever since they outsourced the factories overseas 
and the moment is as warm and wholesome as a lentil 
so wholesome I could just sob 
I am a small clean piglet 
Snout pressed against the knuckles of life 
In vain hope of a sugar cube 
I know those supermarkets were the real museums 
and no cathedral could be as holy
will I ever see them again 
was I ever there at all 

Featured by Kleomenis Spyroglou on Unsplash.


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