Surveillance

The air in the frozen food aisle is stiff.

I’ve been staring at the same bag of peas

long enough to feel the frost on my knuckles,

but I can’t turn around.

There’s a prickle at the base of my skull,

the sense of a gaze pressing into my shirt

like a thumb. I look up at the corner,

where the convex mirror bends the world—

a fish-eye view of my own hunched shoulders

and a dark shape two aisles back,

waiting for me to move, or leave,

or finally pick something up.