Kris Beaver
In the Costco Parking Lot Kirkland, WA
I’m 65. Wearing nitrile gloves
the same color as the blue placard
hanging from my rear-view mirror,
still sitting in my gray Corolla, trying to
decide if I should risk going inside,
when a young employee rolls out
a huge whiteboard listing
no more toilet paper, sanitizer,
disinfectant wipes or fresh chicken.
Limits on other in-demand items.
Please keep 6 feet apart.
I open the car door and notice
a horse chestnut beside my wheel.
It is round, studded with firm spikes
like naval mines I’d seen floating
in black and white WWII movies
or the thistles imbedded in my
tube socks and yellow lab’s fur
after we’d rambled in the woods
when I was an immortal kid.
It is just another prickly traveler,
cocklebur designed to survive,
perhaps puncture some unlucky
shopper’s tire. So, I pick it up.
Put it in my pocket, carry it
around with me like an amulet,
some red-hot virus I can contain.
—Submitted on 03/27/2020
Kris Beaver‘s poems have appeared in Ergo!, Spindrift, Rattle, Visual Verse, Tuck Magazine, and other journals. She began writing poetry in college, then took a writing hiatus to focus on a 39-year elementary teaching career. She returned to writing poetry in 2017, after retiring. Beaver lives outside Seattle.
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