‘Earnings & Loss’ by Jamie Stedmond

The call comes, cleaving cleanly the night
and next thing I know, I’m in early –
calculating minute-by-minute my money.
Moving through rooms like rock-pools.

The supermarket fluoresces, pumps pop tunes
– and I gain unsettling instincts:
smooth peanut butter: blue, crunchy: red,
gluten-free gravy granules will have a green lid.

And I sense too, that there is a god of supermarkets.
This is why, when I need cannellini beans,
there is always one tin (just one) shelved astray
but near me. Often, I find words there, like:

there are a thousand ports for sadness in the soul.
Though, from what I know and have notioned
of poems, this feels like melodrama – embarrassing,
flush against the concreteness of back rooms.

Ports or no, the work is fine because it must be.
It is me: I am sleepless, I overeat, these
Christmas shifts become sunless tunnels, in which I
miss the sky – do not read, and do not write.

I become blurry at my edges. A lady hits me with her trolley,
‘I’m sorry.’ I breathe in the freezer’s sweet air –
I do not want to sound grandiose – but everything
seems lofty when you feel low, so

I am lost (that I can say) and cannot compass what light
fluoresces comes high, from all directions.
Searching shelving, I feel this poem behind wholemeal bread:
I’m trying, to find a way back to myself.

From issue #9: autumn/winter 2019 

About the Author
Jamie Stedmond is an emerging Irish writer. His work has appeared in The Tangerine, Crannog, Abridged, Into The Void, Litro Online and elsewhere.