Karen Tardiff
The Places I’ve Been
Dollar General, 4:17 pm:
The man on the next aisle talks
about flying in the day before, is
mad at the toilet paper hoarders
while his arms are full of Kleenex.
We hightail it to the checkout and
curse ourselves for forgetting litter.
Walmart, 5:01 pm:
Everyone nods politely, side-eyeing
each other’s carts to make sure
there aren’t more than 2 gallons
of water, not caring they have water
coming from the tap while others
have a contaminated well.
HEB, 6:44 pm:
It’s easy to see how the apocalypse
will end, with everyone munching
on balls of flour and egg, all the
produce still in boxes, the organic
aisle untouched, the heart-healthy
foods safe from hoarding, the
bread and Coke men almost as
popular as the Charmin man.
7-Eleven, 7:20 pm:
A bag of ice and a last ditch
effort for milk, the look of fear
and exhaustion on the faces
which are usually smiling
while ringing up Slushees
and hot roller items, not
knowing when the gas
truck is going to arrive.
—Submitted March 20, 2020
Karen Tardiff‘s is the author of the Kindle eBook of poems Stumbling to Breathe (2015, available on Amazon). Her work has appeared in The Dead Mule School, The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Pif Magazine, Tuck Magazine, and other journals. In addition to poetry, Tardiff writes flash fiction, personal essays, and short stories. Born in Texas, Tardiff now lives on the Texas Gulf Coast. A tireless advocate for poetry in Aransas County, she founded the Aransas County Poetry Society, initiated the Poems on the Go project, and heads the Poetry on the Beach event (the first annual staging of which has now been derailed by the pandemic). She is founding publisher and editor-in-chief at Gnashing Teeth Publishing.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.