Seeing Tina in the Produce Section at Safeway by Bob Bradshaw

Seeing Tina in the Produce Section at Safeway

A mini thunder rumbles.
A mist strokes the green onions,
sweeps across the delicate
acreage of parsley,
the lettuce’s skirts,
the cabbage’s stiff petticoats.

Rain is sluicing down outside the store.
Then I see you striding towards me,
beads of water in your hair.

It’s as if you’d dropped out
of a cloudburst.
Only thunder
could introduce you again
into my life. You always preferred
drama to my quiet world
in high school of native
California plants.

I gather myself as the showers
in the spinach abruptly end.
“Hi,” you say sidling up,
fingering a scallion.
“You look good.”

Your glasses perch
atop your strawberry blonde hair,
every strand in place. Mine is as mussed
as a carrot’s. I can’t believe
we dated.

Casually you mention
you’ve just returned
from auditions in L.A.
—and teasing, boast
how your agent’s
created more famous actresses
than my beloved Luther Burbank’s
created varieties
of fruit. Always
the flirt, you
wink

just before Mr. Handsome
approaches, slides his paw
around your waist. You smile,
and the two of you push your cart
out of my life.

I follow, watching.
You turn around, throw me a kiss
just before leaving the store.

I turn my attention back to piling
pyramids of Fuji apples, their faces
as rosy and as luminous
as I remember yours
long ago. I can’t wait to get home
to my lovely wife
and precious baby daughter
to tell them about you.
Ah, I love my small
world….

by Bob Bradshaw

Editor’s Note: The delightful personification and storm imagery adds lightness and amusement to a poem that would otherwise mire the reader in unhappy drama.