The woman in front of me puts a single chicken breast in brown paper, an ear of fresh corn—its green and sugar scent is loud here—and one baking potato on the belt. The man behind me lays out a fresh roll from the bakery, a plastic envelope of prosciutto, and one big chocolate chip cookie, round and pock-marked, a cellophane-wrapped moon. And my own goods, between the grey barriers? Two tomatoes, one cucumber, a packet of dried red beans. I dash out of line to grab an end-cap avocado, and maybe now they can imagine I am not like them, that mine is a different kind of poverty, that I am bringing this black-skinned gem home to someone, that on top of our every night of beans will be, tonight, this surprise, this prize, this fat, silky I love you that she will put in her mouth over and over. That there between our sagging ceiling and curling linoleum, she flushes with pleasure, and everything, even my heart, fills up—
Hope Henderson is a geneticist and science writer at UC Berkeley. Her literary writing has been published in Jellyfish Review, The Citron Review, and The Hunger Journal, among others. Find her work at hoperhenderson.com and find her on twitter @hoperhenderson.
Lost Balloon 