Charlie Leppert
Thursday Night Selling Redneck Wine Glasses and Myself
The gummy fingers of toddlers
snatch pokemon cards
and gum packs;
the sweaty fingers
of children who neeeeed it
leave white stains
on clear glass
as they wail over Classic Vinyl
24/7 DeadHead radio
until collapsible parents
pay for plastic with soggy dollars;
the toddlers and middle schoolers
are always pocketing merchandise
that is more valuable
than I am.
It is all so familiar
and so bizarre,
so far away,
like your face when you
look in the mirror one night
and you are older
than you remembered.
It is tattooed to the memory
and under the eyes,
the boxcutter scars,
ripped cargo pants,
“Yo, has anyone seen my price gun?”
spilled coffee,
missed breaks,
“the front register was short fifty last night
but you wouldn’t know anything about that
would you?”
the countless identical faces
of dirty handed customers
and their greasy bills
and dusty checkbooks
and chipped fingernails
and “that’s credit, ma’am” cards
and unfortunate bangs
and their spit;
the forced-smile chime
of cash register music,
and the harmony of exchanging
goods for capital,
for health and time,
and the broken heater,
and the processing chip
do not remove
debit transaction declined
and “have a nice day”
and “Excuse me,
but I want to speak to a manager,”
and “Ma’am,
I am the manager,”
expired coupons and excuses
crumpled up in the pockets
of men in expensive suits
who take-a-penny
when they buy sticky, bloody
gummy cherry slices
and they don’t ever leave one.
I drag a vacuum out
of a basement caked in the dirt
of products already sold
and employees already fired
and I suck up bandaids,
loose dimes and receipts,
lollipop wrappers,
bleached hairs missing from heads
out of the carpets
until they are only as brown
as this morning saw them.
You cannot buy my dignity
but it looks like you can rent it
for $8.25 an hour.
Charlie Leppert’s work has appeared in Mind Over Gender, The Labyrinth, and the Validation Project, among other websites and publications. He has been awarded the Stephen W. Chung Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and a Center for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation Scholarship from Bergen Community College. Leppert is queer poet and student from northern New Jersey whose poetic work focuses on queerness, the complexity of American identity, mental health, faith, and resistance.
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