Talker enters, ignites; eyes on nothing
particular, one hand to a cart,
one to catch language spilling from her face.

Talker does not see the teen cashier
rubbing her calves, thank-you-for-shopping,
ignores the bald man with the hearing aid
staring at sliced loaves, wondering how
Jesus feels about wrapping life in plastic.

Talker’s words waft like tiny particles
begging for a pollution monitor,
leave tiny brown droppings on the soup labels,
pass like radiation through the single mother
stuck with the screaming girl in the cart and the boy
with the sagging diaper pulling out cereal boxes.

Talker positively zooms,
a mouth-propelled pulse traveling fiber-optic aisles
past the homeless crammed in canned-food cartons
past aborted fetuses in jars next to the luncheon meat
past old Hispanic women straddling brooms and mops
wishing for instrument-guided flights.

Relativity reigns:
As Talker approaches the speed of light,
mass dwindles, dwindles, until
the cashier ambles around to pick up Talker’s dress
puddled beneath the swipe-card machine,
making way for the masses.