Pamela Sumners
Discount Bazaar St. Louis
At the ghetto Schnucks sometimes
you see a woman in a hijab
postering “There is no Muslim War,”
citing the Treaty of Tripoli.
Sometimes there’s a little girl
in a fluffy stained pink coat twirling
away from her back-handing mama
in pajama pants, swatting and snarling.
Sometimes the slow food stamp lines
frustrate the fluctuating drunks
hopscotching back from cashier to cashier,
snapping like hypertensive brassieres.
You throw parking-lot popcorn
and the pigeons storm the asphalt
for their gastronomical gestalt.
You dream a murmuration of birds
forming careful V’s, swarming sunsets.
Pamela Sumners is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer. Her work has been published or recognized by over 20 journals and publishing houses in 2018. Her work has been selected for inclusion in Halcyone/Black Mountain Press volume, 64 Best Poets of 2018. She lives in St. Louis with her wife, son, and three rescue dogs.
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