If I Wrote Poems Like I Grocery Shop

The first line would always be frozen pizza.
The second would read two gallons of milk,
one box of raisin bran.
The third would be yogurt, one fruity, one plain.
The fourth, instant soup cartons – just add water.
The fifth – apples, the cheaper the better.
The sixth – cookies. The seventh – eggs.
As for the eighth, it’d be a loaf of bread.
I’d write a poem once a week.
It’d be an exact replica of the one
I wrote last week
and the one I’ll write next week.
It would be predictable
but it would keep you alive.
What more could you ask of poetry?

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Sheepshead Review. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and California Quarterly.