Kathryn Reese identifies pathogens on night shifts in a hospital lab. At the height of her career (the Covid pandemic) she perfected the arts of scanning barcodes and dispensing clear solutions from 10L buckets into grids of microwells.

After Ginsberg and Whitman left the Supermarket

After Allen Ginsberg’s A Supermarket in California

by Kathryn Reese

The last itinerants have left the aisles—
it’s just me, my mop and a sludge
of watermelon pulp across the floor.

It’s just me, unpaid overtime
and an abandoned cart full of unwrapped
cheeses, popped Pringles, warm ham,
avocados past their prime, bruised beneath wrinkled skin
and tomatoes split and weeping.

I have cleaned the mess after the poets before.
I know they’re ill-equipped for fiscal exchange
—who pays you
to lather yourself in cream, to sample every spice,
or become one with the penumbra of neon lights?
My boss just wants a slogan for our cereal box,
unwaxed, raw, and good for the digestion.

I’ll dim the lights,
lock the dumpster against rats
and ravenous waifs
who would make stew with discarded fruit.
I’ll stare at the moon,
make picnic in the parking lot:
unwrapped cheese, soft tomato and lukewarm ham.

Kathryn Reese lives in Adelaide, South Australia. She works in medical science and enjoys road trips, long walks and late night collaborative art experiments. Her writing explores themes of nature, spirituality, myth and the possibility of shape shift. Her poems are published in Neoperennial Press Heroines Anthology, Paperbark, Hayden’s Ferry Review and Yellow Arrow Journal.