Lucky Man
The man in Lucky supermarket cruised down the aisle,
having no discernible legs several inches above the knee.
Still, he and his wheelchair and his shopping cart
beat me to the checkout line (the only one open).
He asked the woman in front of him, a former neighbor,
what route she took driving home to Bodega, and he
asked the clerk—Val, her badge said—he’d gone
to school with her—about their old friend Roy.
He asked me if I saved the Lucky stamps, the paper ones
for non-members or the E-stamps with Lucky rewards
—one stamp for each $10; thirty-five to collect a free
Thomas knife. And he’d earned one stamp at least, because,
he said to Val, just making sure, those cans of soup
she was ringing up were five for $5, and he bought ten
and a bottle of ketchup. I didn’t want the stamp (but I
thanked him), neither did the woman next in line, and still,
when Val said take care, he said he would, he was a lucky man.
* * * * *
Stella D’Oro
The family gathers at Mount Lebanon Cemetery to place
the stone on grandma’s grave. The parched ground is
dusted with fine sugary sand. Ants wander the graves,
travel in and out of the soil. The girl worries that she will
accidentally squish them and what if they creep into her new
Buster Brown sandals. Later in her kitchen, Aunt Claire
offers Stella D’Oro cookies, says the name means star of gold.
Mother tells the girl Aunt Claire’s husband left her some years
ago; she’s married and not married. They won’t stay long.
The girl recalls how sweet the bakery smelled when she visited
her grandmother. She says no thank you for the cookies. They
look hard and dry, and what if the sprinkles taste like ants?