Encased in the assimilationist section

Of a busy, overpriced, supermarket.

Are plump, frozen, lemmings.

 

At the store’s borders,

A many-scarred remnant,

Proclaiming loud and clear,

For all the shoppers to hear,

“Enough already!”

 

By the butcher

There’s a whole lot of hacking going on.

(The meat is lean, properly salted,

Drained of blood.)

 

Through the doors,

Overtaxing the automatic “out” and “in”,

Enter the poor,

Followed by the wretched,

With the teeming refuse in the rear.

 

There are enlightened groups near the window,

Shadowy groups in the back of the store.

 

A few meshuganas giving the cashier a hard time

And all be commanded by the manager

To exit, depart, never to return.

To take their business elsewhere.

 

And up and down.

Each and every aisle,

The people push their pushcarts.

These people who move  and look like each other.

They shop, stop, talk, make covenants, receive commandments.

They come off unnamed streets,

And before they leave, nameless like lemmings,

They make an impression.

 

                                                                                               

                                                                            

                                                                                                      -   Jeffrey Eisenmesser, 1986