Stare Down

Stare Down

    I push a grocery cart in a produce market past homegrown Maine kale. Here, outside of Presque Isle, blueberry orchards wait for summer to be harvested by sturdy girls who pine for love. There are aisles of green leafy vegetables in bunches on racks. A freckled young woman faces me in a narrow passage between the Edenic edibles. “I was there first and therefore have the right of passage.”  
     She says, “What if I sue you for bumping me and hurting my back?” So I make way for her.
     My heart longs to turn our lemon encounter into a butternut squash surprise. I follow her to the register with “Hey what if our meeting was meant to be because we knew each other from the same Scottish clan in a past life?”
     “For originality, you get to gaze into my eyes, until one of us flinches. If I look away first, then you’re man enough to handle me. If you are the first to glance away, then your consolation prize is to help me carry my groceries to the car. No man has yet won this contest with me.”
     “Let the game begin,” I say.