Eggs, half a dozen. Milk, whole.
A bruised pear, discounted. The man at the register
scans each with a flick of his wrist,
his name tag crooked,
a plastic rectangle of small authority.
Outside, the bus exhales at the curb,
doors yawning like a morning beast.
A woman steps off, balancing a cake box,
its white string an umbilical cord
tied to something she refuses to drop.
The street hums in its usual voice—
car horns, shoe heels, a distant siren
threading through the air like a loose stitch.
An old man shakes open a newspaper,
creases the world into neat disasters.
Somewhere, a war waits to be named.
Somewhere, a mother fills a silence
with the scraping of a chair.
And here, in my bag,
the eggs knock gently against each other,
as if asking which of us will break first.