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.

 
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