Hunger Flight Fright

   by Susan Stevens

Three cashiers chased frantically out
into the friendly store’s parking lot,
as if to save someone
felled by stroke or runaway car.  Soon
they marched a woman and her two small lads
with widening eyes back 
into the clotting groups of late shoppers 
waiting for an altogether different kind
of report. Behind the mother
(who stood very straight), a dark-haired boy
pushed the store’s cart, straining
with its heavy, red-handed load of beans and pasta,
lettuce, fruit, meat
and that commodity which we are told
Jean Valjean risked everything for.