Kevin Hulme

Brief Encounter: Aisle 6: World Foods

For so it was as I walked through the Aisle,

That cheap local store for my daily bread,

Unmoved by the signs of 5 percent off,

Now ‘Saving you Money’ baloney-rot,

I then turned the corner and there you were:

Standing , looking at something on a shelf, 

Engrossed in a product with Its Tacky embroidery of script and bloated claims.

I opened the meeting with: ‘Hello there’,

Not being the Original of Coves,

But still I will beg the Jury’s pardon,

For I never was Don Juan, Or Jerry Lewis’s ‘Nutty Prof’ after a swift drink.

‘Well I haven’t seen you in a long time’,

So she’s missed me I fool myself to muse.

And then we talk above the cheap Muzak,

My Eyes And Ears only for her alone,

And I listen to her voice; hers, just hers;

No warbler on high or greeting ‘Hello’ from the other patrons nudging past me.

She smiled every now and then with bright eyes;

Make a Priest run screaming to Confession .

In time we said our ‘Goodbyes’ to depart.

And I was left there amongst ‘Uncle Ben’

And Ten-Varieties of lowly Soup.

My Brief Encounter In Aisle Number 6.

Next time I went, I looked down that long Aisle:

Though nothing but the products awaiting.