Dark Night Shopping

Faces come at me as stricken as graveyard moons. The supermarket hangs heavy, laden as it is with neon anchors. The aisles are runways for empty eyes, a few sections contain searching bodies. She turns to me at the check-out, she has me tagged; wine bottles from the mark-down bin rattle on the moving counter. She clutches a red plastic pocketbook. Brown knee-length boots, dimples. Gold button earrings - worn-out pretty; hard liquor in soft bottles. There is just us, and the shuttling hands of the shop-worker' She has to talk. "Sorry," she says. I wonder if I should apologize also? I think we are just forgiving each other for being here in an awkward moment, in the late hour, exposed like this. Outside, the car park is lifting off into the night. A thousand aliens are leaving to search for salvation. I can't look at them, each face is a small moon shining.