He knows what goes into it, the packer in the supermarket, the man my age, retired, name tag askew, gray hair thin- ning, he’s putting eggs, frozen veggies, free- range chicken in the blue insulated bag with Velcro grippers lining its mouth, sealing cold that inhibits a kind of dying, the same bag that young packers swell with cereals, plastic wrap, cans of beans that won’t rot or sour or liquefy. What do they know of such things, if they can’t say what happens It Happened One Night, get Velcro strips to meet, this Cheerios box now protruding its Oh Oh Oh Oh.
John Allman | Listening to the Nightingale Contents | Mudlark No. 48 (2012)