I first saw you walking down past the pasta sauces
Bad skin, good style, you were my kryptonite
We locked eyes briefly, as I stood kneeling before the cashews

 

your hair fell in lank, salty waves around your face
the sleeves of your t-shirt cuffed to reveal sculptural, faint triceps
Glossier Boy Boy tamed and fluffed my boy brows
my bangs rippled and curved like a question mark

 

Later, you would circle back.
“Need anything?”
“Um, yeah, where’s the tuna?”

 

and before I could even tell you where the tuna was, you said,
“Oh, there’s the tuna”
but I think we both knew
despite water being an excellent carrier of electricity
that you weren’t looking…for tuna

 

you kept cycling back through my aisle
it couldn’t be that we don’t have signs
anywhere

 

I saw you talking to a young, blonde woman
I felt an inkling of fear
Were you together?
You couldn’t be; you had a basket and she had a cart
You were simply, I reasoned, beautiful moths flocking to the same flame
Matching slim silverware misplaced in the ladle drawer
Or two hot deer in a field

 

So powerful, and seductive, was my delusion

 

“Need anything else?” I ask when you make another trip around.
“No,” you say. No? Did you not see what I did with the tuna?

 

Later, while you’re on line, I see the truth
You are standing next to the other glamorous deer,
Laughing-laughing-laughing

 

What are you doing asking me for tuna when you have a girlfriend?

 

And why the separation of groceries?
We do do separate checks, you know
Could it be there is a chasm in your relationship?
Is that tuna not for sharing?

 

I hope your arms – spindly little things – got tired from carrying around those shallow metal tins
I found someone new anyway
“Where’s the granola?” was his entry into my heart