Chilanga

I saw you standing there in the
Jamaica Plain food mart

you put
three red
carboard boxes
of spanish sodium rice
into your shopping cart

I watched you read
the nutrition facts

you sent off your
white college roommate as though she were
an ivory puck
sailing across a shuffle board
towards the Hi-Lo produce isle
to appropriate some celery

she felt so--
--cultured.
as she moved across the
linoleum floor

all of it
all of it she did for her
own,
genuine
--her prized
real-life chilanga

in this moment
you looked at me, we
locked eyes
you with your mexico '68 dress on
me with my
righteous guilt

I was considering how
all sex under capitalism
is inseparable from coercion
as I thought about
how your butt
looks cute in the dress

the chess men cookies behind you
wondered if anything
would ever
be any different

by then you were
one eighth towards the
meat section
and
in one glance
you had known me
even before
I had shown you
my sharpened teeth
with a smile