Empty calories.

A hundred iron fishees waddle forlorn around the parking lot, belching caviar blossoms, denting and swerving, carrying empty trunks and seatbelts. Horsepowered and hungry, hurry scurry heartbeat half-breath. Under halogen skies we rotate into our little slots, all lined up and careful. Orderly now, list it, check it. Here comes dinner for one, there's a trolley for six. Plan, prepare, imagine the future, no cupboard bare. I'm boxed in by suburban metal, Volvos and such, everyone furtive, listmaking by thumb and memory. "Is the chicken fresh?", "Get the 4 ply", there a squeeze, here a probe, sniff and judge and never look into their eyes. That's no potato, that's no meal: designed in California, ethylened in Brooklyn, carted in Woodbridge. These little boxes of pharmaceutical nutrition are singing "pick me" lullabies, foursquare and dust-topped, seven deep at $4.89. But let's venture in, unbuckled, and caffeinated. Hoist some beef, manhandle a cabbage, sniff like I know better.