Aisle of You

I went to the supermarket and a poem happened to me. 

Here it is. 

I have to go to Big Sainsbury’s

We are perilously close to running out of toothpaste

And while I’m there I might as well pick up six or seven bottles of wine

It’s early Summer in the year of the virus

We’ve just started to wear facemasks

It’s still new enough to seem surreal

There’s a pressure on my face that yet hasn’t been internalised

Like my glasses used to feel when I was a vain teenager

Or my beard when it was young and scratchy

I walk through the aisles, looking at my fellow shoppers

At the variety of masks

The colours and the patterns

Wondering if they feel the constant presence too

An old man, plain green cloth covering his mouth and nose

Waits for me to pass at the end of that aisle with all the cheese

I smile, then realise he probably can’t tell

And I’m struck by something as he moves on

His eyes

His eyes are beautiful

I move on

A woman picks up milk, 

Her mask, by accident or design, matches her dress, 

Brown and orange stripes

And above the fabric, her eyes are grey with flecks of gold

Bright and alive in a way I’ve rarely seen

I scan the bottles of wine, second shelf down

£7 limit, maybe £8 if I’m feeling particularly middle class

A few metres across, a guy my age loads wine into his basket 

Top shelf. Fancy.

His mask is black and perfectly tooled, like a supervillain

His eyes are pale cold blue and stunning in their intensity

The girl before me in the queue

Hers is red patterned fabric and looks home made

Eyes like a movie star

The guy behind the till

Checkerboard black and white

Eyes like the ocean

The security guard

A Van Goch swirl of night

Eyes grey like mercury or living stone

Four lads swaggering outside the shop

Get to the entrance, fumble in pockets

Cover their faces with fabric skulls and fire and stars

Their eyes coming alive in that same moment

Wild and defiant and insecure and hungry

Later, at home, as I unpack the wine and realise I forgot to buy toothpaste

I see a woman online

No mask

A defiant selfie in a shopping aisle

Posted to Twitter to make a stand

She is free

Her proud, rebellious, naked face tells it to the world

She will not surrender so easily

To this repression that makes it hard for her to breathe

I look at her face for a while.

Trying to see her

Failing to see her

She’s probably got beautiful eyes

It’s just hard to tell, without the mask