trout

Doubling back

Anna Jackson

I've taken to writing every shopping list
twice, once in the order I use things up
and once in the order of the aisles,
but still I'm always doubling back,
leaving my trolley
by the frozen foods
and then forgetting
to remember ice.
Every year seems shorter than the year before
yet when I work out the cost of things
in terms of time, everything gets cheaper
as if the years were getting longer
by the minute.
I'll just have to put more in to it,
fill up with abstractions
that can travel so vastly
every year will be like an ocean liner
with a swimming pool on the top floor,
the length of the swim
depending entirely on how often
you want to swim back and forth.