Self Checkout

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You like the way
you heft your items
  CABERNET @ 2 for 5
from right to left
and deftly turn
  LB BRN RICE 1.19
to where a scanner reads
reflected laser beams between
  LHT RED KID 1.99
lines thick and thin
irregularly spaced

like, among thick winter days, this
sliver of warmth to ride your bike
where unobstructed sun through pines
makes lines on your road,
each bar you achieve
a part of coded miles
you leave behind:
  AWFL AWSM
opportunities ahead if
  ETRNTY
is similarly lined.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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The first time I noticed a bar code was on the cover of MAD magazine around 1970 when Alfred E. Neuman mowed it like grass. The bar code came to mind recently during a bike ride in late November; I saw possibilities for a poem when I realized that rhymes irregularly spaced might be analogous to bars in the code. Some actual receipts from Publix helped me out.

This is my first try at a technique that I associate with Billy Collins. His poems often begin with a whimsical or ordinary observation that develops to a point where a tangent thought takes the poem off to some very unexpected place. - WSS