The Grocery Store

THE GROCERY STORE / Maura Stanton At first I used to read headlines At checkout stands with a laugh: WOMAN CAPTURES SHRIEKING GHOST, Or else, SHIP RETURNS FROM LIMBO. I only wanted what I saw, Apples, ginger root, and beans, Or gleaming flasks of vinegar. I didn't need a mystery world Where spirits knocked, or aliens Landed in a humming saucer. I drove to shop past fields of corn, Saw the corn turned to stubble, And never thought of death in fall But only of the Christmas hams. Then one day the produce man, A neighbor I had known for years, Wept to say his wife had died By her own perverse desire, Locked inside their big garage. I stood near him at the funeral. He told me she was not in heaven But only somewhere in the air Just beyond our narrow vision. Later he spoke about a séance. Friends had held his sweating hands. He called his wife until she rapped A message on the table top. The medium whispered in the dark: Yes, she loves you tenderly But she trembles with the cold. Light a candle and she'll come. So every night he lights a candle And he feels the faint rustle As she steps in from the dark To scorch her invisible hands. Every week the garish headlines 138 · The Missouri Review Insist there is another world That ordinary people see— Spaceships land in backyards; A baby cures a multitude; An angry ghost destroys the china To the amazement of a waitress; A dentist shouts from his coffin— For even when we die there's still Hope for revenge, or true love. Deep inside my chest I feel Blood moving through the arteries. Sometimes I'm dizzy when I stand. I know my body's nothing more Than a side of beef in the freezer, Mapped, ready for cutting. But when I wait at the register At busy times, I seem to feel Some buzz or hum or energy Coming from the hands in motion, Talking mothers, businessmen, Old women buying bran flakes, Teenagers in line with pizza— Everyone reads the shocking news, Silently, or to a friend, Eyebrows moving in irony Or lips in private wonder, And on every stranger's face I see a flash of agony: Why not? Why not a miracle? Maura Stanton THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 239 ...