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voluptuousness at the grocery store –
of all places, i’m shore –
distracts me from what i even went there for.

i swear i have the list in-hand:
yellow mustard; country gravy; mini SOS pads,
and a friendly face patrolling should i forget such well-laid plans.
i don’t really want to be here but i am:
adulting is hard but proves i am a man!
another impromptu shopping experience in the can,
til i reach the impulse purchases at the exit door.

i used to know a definition of beauty
that was superficially deep,
but now that i’m whiting-out –
more Saruman than pre-Two Towers Gandalf,
but just as good and wise! we hope –
and having learned to live with a bigger partner,
that implication stretches farther.
it was never even competition before,
when i was more attracted to the girls with their bones protruding
cause their hair color & stockings were all it took
to get me brooding.

now i’m standing, looking
okay, staring
and she isn’t looking back –
settle down, just let the girl pack!
maybe because she’s still too young;
too chubby, to know a look like that from a man.
but she isn’t chubby: she’s thic-que
and fan-tasti-que –
wearing pants made of elasti-que,
and all the pockets of fun that pique
the interest of one boner-fide freak.

bonified meek
and probably old enough to be her father –
i’m of course all-too-aware that my wife is watching
to see on whom my sex-crazed thoughts are subsiding,
partially because it’s her Visa card on whose charge we’re relying.

the bag girl stays cool.
maybe she knows i’m watching her pose
out of the corner of her eye, framed by her half-visible nose –

and that if she looks in actuality,
then has to confront a reality
that she might not be ready to accept such causality.
whoever said life doesn’t deal in totalities?

//jf 10.22.2022

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