In These Aisles

From an ASBO to Asda
I’ve come a long way, they say,
as if stacking shelves was a
big dream of mine, like ‘wey-hey,
it’s Spreads and fucken Preserves today’,
although it would, in fact, be okay

so far as such shit goes, I suppose,
if it wasn’t for the likes of her
with her coriander and nose
in the air, her sun-tinted spikes of hair,
crashing into me like some charioteer,
like the fact I’m simply standing here

working my gonads off is some grave
insult, like it’s big of her to brave
these rough aisles — some muckamuck
with a River Cottage cookbook
who most likely has a big fuck
you car and two kids she never looks

at but is always idolizing
(crooked teeth, front of the school choir)
with some accessorized husband most aroused
when fantasizing about finalizing
with online buyers bidding higher and higher,
for all of her low-buttoned blouse,

her fuck me pink push-up bra,
her trimmed asparagus and Laksa
paste and vermin-fucken-celli
noodles and the silken jelly
of her soft, floating, flower-skirted arse.
For me to even dream of her’s a farce

but she’ll see. For I’m going to have
me a big black Audi with satnav
and leather seats, and I’ll burn past her
and every single fucken manager
in this place. I won’t be down because of her,
or them. Not even my liaison officer.

He followed me once, got on my bus —
like I wouldn’t clock a mumpsimus
with a file chart slitching after me —
so I took him to The Winds where the peelers
won’t go, and left him outside Digsy’s
front door (and Digsy takes no prisoners)

while I sleeched out the back of the house
to call at Britney’s for a bong and tea.
For the next month he couldn’t look at me
without his smush turning rufous,
and then he was replaced. Fucken doofus.
I’ll show the lot of them. Now, 1, 2, 3 . . .

I’m the safe pair of hands they want me to be,
stacking Pop-Tarts, Branflakes, muesli,
Rice Krispies, Sugar Puffs, Coco Pops,
Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes in the King of Shops.
But when I’ve shelved the Frosties and Weetabix,
I take my pay, I get my kicks . . .

Alan Gillis
from Here Comes the Night
Publication date: September 2010