Matthew Harrison
NEW WORLDS ARE OLD NEWS
The pilgrim in Stop & Shop:
broad hat, cloak. In the cantaloupes,
the pilgrim. No fruit coaxes.
Nothing ripe on sale looks new.
When I shout “extra safe!”
my wife cries
for Saint Benedict, learner confirmer.
Who will not lie nude?
The sunburn in Stop & Shop:
flip-flops, bikini. Seagulls flock each
unsunburned spot. Cabinets of milk.
The crotch is an animal knot.
I bitch out the loud window AC unit
while asleep, sleep-bitching evil
dream starfish with teeth. They bite.
Who knows the oceans of our blood?
In Stop & Shop the kid calls a split kiwi
a cooter. White Keds, Atlanta
Braves cap backwards. The man-kid.
But fruit is edible sex.
Parked in the Stop & Shop lot post
gym, I’m sopping sweat, I’m hard up,
craving chicken. In a bind: a coop.
Any cooked muscle is chicken.
The pilgrim forgoes all cantaloupe.
Stop & Shop is a bad rock
to Plymouth. The pilgrim doubts bargain fruit.
A good pilgrim will self-check out.
In my hands I have two hands.
Our hands. Hot palms planted in the pulp
of us. Juice pilgrimage. Fuck Stop & Shop.
The best fruit is never bought.
Born in Georgia, Matthew Harrison lived in Seattle and Los Angeles before moving to Western Massachusetts, where he’s completing an MFA at UMass Amherst. His work has most recently appeared or will soon in Yemassee, The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Ping Pong, JMWW, and others.
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #3.
