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24/7
- Article from:
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Poetry
- Article date:
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September 1, 2008
- Author:
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Copyright informationCopyright Poetry Foundation Sep 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The one cashier is dozing
head nodding, slack mouth open,
above the cover girl spread out before her on the counter
smiling up
with indiscriminate forgiveness
and compassion for everyone
who isn't her.
Only the edge
is visible of the tightly spooled
white miles
of what is soon
to be the torn off
inch by inch receipts,
and the beam of green light in the black glass
of the self scanner
drifts free in the space that is the sum
of the cost of all the items that tonight
won't cross its path.
Registers of feeling too precise
too intricate to feel
except in the disintegrating
traces of a dream
panopticon of cameras
cutting in timed procession
from aisle to aisle
to aisle on the overhead screens
...