Down at the Grocery Store

To call it a public announcement

is a real understatement. I’d post

it on the board down at the grocery store

amongst all the other bulletins

but there’s nobody left here to read it.

I thought maybe I could stick it in a bottle

and toss it into the ocean, Lord knows

there are enough plastic bottles lying around

but on second thought maybe I should give

the ocean a fighting chance.

It’s strange seeing cash and coins

all over the ground. In the old days

this would have been a chaotic scene

like a line up on Black Friday.

There was a time the bulletins were useful.

If I needed my grass cut cheap, I’d find it.

A handyman who knows a thing or two,

or chinchillas for sale, or even goldfish

or even get my garden rototilled.

Instead, I’ll walk out onto the pier

empty all the packets of seeds into the water

and hope a tide takes them to a place,

a place where fertile soil can produce new life.