Nin Andrews

In the Supermarket of Orgasms

after Allen Ginsberg  and Louise Gluck

Some nights I feel so alone in my longing for you, love, alone in my supermarket of orgasms as I cruise the aisles of produce, contemplating two pears, asking myself, Do I dare?  Or do I dare eat a peach?   Or these plums, so cold, so sweet? But then I see the store detective watching me in the convex mirror. (He’s such a perv!)  And Louise Gluck in the floral section, pushing a cart filled with fragrant flowers, swearing she hates their scent.  As I watch (she thinks I’m not looking) she presses her face into the blossoms and inhales deeply.  A little cry of pleasure escapes her lips.  And I inhale with her and cry out, too.  For how can I resist?

How can I live without that scent in the air? Or that odor in the world, as Louise calls it?  I ask this as I close my eyes and think of you, love, of your lips sealing my mouth as my cry rises higher and higher, mounting until I rise up with it, leaving Louise far below, discontentedly contemplating her next lie or line as the little wheels of her grocery cart squeak and spin around and around like a question pursuing an answer that has already drifted through the sliding doors and out into the night.

Author: Nin Andrews

Nin Andrews’ poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, and four editions of Best American Poetry. The author of seven chapbooks and seven full-length poetry collections, she has won two Ohio individual artist grants, the Pearl Chapbook Contest, the Kent State University chapbook contest, the Gerald Cable Poetry Award, and the Ohioana 2016 Award for poetry. She is also the editor of a book of translations of the Belgian poet, Henri Michaux, called Someone Wants to Steal My Name. Her book, The Last Orgasm, was published by Etruscan Press in 2020. Her memoir, Son of a Bird, is forthcoming from Etruscan Press in 2025.

Plume: Issue #40 October 2014