Chanda Feldman
University Market
I could be found at the University Market and Deli working
from 4 p.m. to midnight, Tuesdays and Thursdays
after my Czech literature class. My hair pulled back
with a maroon scarf that matched my market polo,
my gold nameplate fastened on. The radio on the news.
The hot dogs’ oil under red lights. I glimpsed
myself in a security camera feed on the TV screen,
in a ghosting blued black-and-white. My hands pressuring
a turkey breast into sliced sheets against the blade.
I was learning about the dual worlds of East and West
in Milan Kundera. I imagined my upcoming spring break:
a dark wood Czech pub, biting the end off a sausage
and sipping beer. How I would be far away, walking
Prague’s Old Town cobblestone streets in my camel coat,
beret and mittens; taking the bus to the hilltop spas
at Marianske Lazne, the curative carbonated springs inside
the fog and tall pines. The buildings’ yellow and pink facades
in my travel book, I was saving up each paycheck for it.
The assistant manager always goading me to hurry up,
and too close to me, his hand, trailing a seam down
the side of my slacks. I stopped in place behind the deli case—
behind the shelved salads, meats, cheeses, the cooler cases’
frozen treats, ice creams, pizzas, sheet cakes; the boxes
in the aisles I was unpacking and stacking; the cans and
jars I arranged to keep the shelves looking full.
I stopped and saw what I was about to do.
Chanda Feldman is the author of Approaching the Fields. Her poems have appeared recently in the journals Alaska Quarterly Review, the Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Feldman is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College.