Aisle 6 (rewrite)

 on the hunt for:

• fancy snacks for guests
• choice cut of meat
• vegan nibbles
• bread and butter
• frozen kids' stuff
• lottery ticket

a pickled mind
a shrunken head
a sphincter that tightens
as eye contact is made

we see each other as obstacles

a caseous mass
a premium cheese
full of varicose veins
blue with sadness
in the bruised clot of fermented dairy
churned hunk of putrid fat
spun from a modified sweat gland
in the bosom of what once was a beast

vacuum packed brains
in supermarket labyrinths
in jars adjacent 
to other dismembered body parts 
isolated organs not fit for purpose

menstruating hearts and perennial livers
the contents of a chest that beats no more
laid bare in the ice

consumers fondle the flesh

to ensure quality produce

someone trips
on a frozen corpse
a customer 
takes with them
an armful of shelf
on their way towards
a laminated collision
towards a puddle of glass
and broken calcified matrix

such are the dangers of modern foraging

"spillage on aisle 6"
an omnipotent voice echoes,
thick with colloquial cadence

strong bleach is applied
elbow grease and a mop and bucket
a snapped spine
a legal process
there's a court battle
a tug of words
there's pity
and a carrier bag
full of desiccated dreams

a pint of milk
a pound of flesh
your weight in gold
the blood of your first-born
your bank details
your pin and chip
your face and biometrics

this is the price we must pay 

BEEP BEEP goes the till
the sound of censorship 
a validated bar-code

monetary transaction complete

time to move on

forcing words through a coarse sieve

Created as part of Sam Illingworth's workshop on writing science poetry on the climate crisis. The prompt: "pick a topic, pick a form, and write. you've got 3 minutes".

The world wanted me
To write in lines, but the wind changed
And I was, distracted