I.
It’s not just your bog-standard checkout work:
You get to come around from behind the till
to zap the barcodes on bags of compost, bark,
ornamental trees, sun-loungers, drills.
She likes to speculate what state their gardens are in:
This pinched old pair, buying multipack
ground-cover heather, have cat problems;
this guy with the orchids fusses in a bachelor flat;
this young couple—spring color in a queue of gray—
need something for the beds outside their first,
Redrow home on one of the new out-of-town estates.
Her affinity is with orchid guy, but he’s terse,
she being just the necessary evil via which he
can exit, head back to be with his little brood
and introduce them to his Aphrodite.
And yet—a woman gets out to open the boot.
III.
Union Jack bunting and trestle tables. People fed
and watered for the queen living a long time.
He normally wouldn’t be seen dead,
but she’s here. Not apart, not resigned,
he realizes, swallowing down his disappointment:
in a paper crown, chatty with her neighbors,
who all seem to know her well, content
to let their smallest sit in her lap while they devour
the meticulously iced cupcakes she’s made. A part
of the community, which he stays removed from,
assuming generosity erodes art.
He retreats to his view. The party goes on.
IX.
Artificial trees are what get her out from behind
the till with her zapper now. Cliff Richard’s
on a loop. Edict from above: stripey elf hats
to be worn by front-of-store staff. A plastic herd
of reindeer blink on and off in the entrance.
A man buying a candle bridge (pinewood finish)
looks familiar to her somehow, embarrassed.
Nice enough to turn the card reader on him with a flourish
and say “Eleven ninety-nine, please” with an extra smile.
Her hat bell’s tinkle brings her out in a hot flush,
embarrassed herself now. It’s been a while.
“Great hat,” he says, but flatly, mood dashed.
He waves away the offer of a bag, wedges
the box under one arm as is a Real Man’s wont,
she suspects he suspects. “Would you like your receipt?”
The automatic doors close on his response.
XI.
The shutter down on another year, or at least
until Boxing Day. Who needs garden tat
between then and New Year? A hand fork, peat?
Not skeletal, dank borders, fairy-lit.
The shutter going up rustily, dejectedly on
Christmas with her sister’s family across town,
she assisting in “Ho-ho-ho!” apron,
one of her nieces not there, already flown,
a family of her own in Auckland. Could she
make an excuse and stay home this year?
Get out of playing happy, the happy family?
It being not really the most wonderful time of the year.
Through the gate to the laurel, which they planted
when they first moved in, she and Steve.
These days she fantasizes it’s a portal, her palms
tickling it to part, embrace her in reprieve.
Prostate cancer. That’s what has made the house
empty when she’s not there, and also when she is.
She lingers this time, watching the gloss-
green leaves reflect streetlight, her ungloved fingertips
tickled all the way up to her door. She turns
back in hope: no one there. This is how her eye is caught
by a high window glowing opposite, wherein
stands a bridge, a speculative arc, of candlelight.
Robert Selby is a British poet whose collections are The Coming-Down Time and The Kentish Rebellion (both from Shoestring). He edits King’s College London’s poetry journal, Wild Court.
Photo by James Giddins on Unsplash
