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The bag of peas is frost-bit and curled,

a small, cold weight against my palm.

I'm just trying to leave this fluorescent world

and find some version of sleep or calm.

But the red light hunts for a black-lined code

that’s tucked in a plastic, crinkled fold.

The scanner chirps like a metal toad,

saying nothing is bought and nothing is sold.

I swipe it again. Then a third, slow pass.

The glass eye stares, indifferent and bright.

I’m a ghost in the store, a smudge on the glass,

waiting for a machine to say I’m right.