The old white man reading a box of Corn Flakes is like me.
Do you ever get up to go no where at sunrise? I shop at dawn
before all the good eggs are cracked. Only I & the elderly
know the super market is last vestige of America -
namebrands & generic condiments, blackeye peas, white rice,
spanish onions - everything has its cost. This morning
it's Aint Jemima's Authentic Maple Syrup With Artificial Flavoring,
BUY 1, GET 1 FREE. Meaning, one's half as much as usual
& I'm getting something for nothing. The cashier
has two bouyant breasts to compensate for her lack
of arithmetic. She hands me my change one coin at a time
as if I can't count. How much do I deserve?
In the 10th grade I knew briefly numbers to be the Grand
Daddies of the Cosmos. Pythagoras & Plato, knew it too -
MATH: realm of the Real & Infinite Truth. Each old man
was right to scorn poets for their noise about d**h
& personal Beauty. Anyone will tell you, Poetry
is beautiful, but it ain't no super Model. Greeks had Logic
to compensate for their lack of Romance. Still, the Supermarket
with her aisles of cubes & cylinders & $3.14 cent pies
dons a kind of elegaic splendor. One plus one can equal one,
because, BUY 1, GET 1 FREE, means: 1 is Indivisible -
One Nation, with Liberty & Justices etcetera.
"Buy one, get one free," said the slave trader to cotton heads
when pregnant African mounted the auction block. America!
Everything has its price; nearly everything has been bought.