Poem by Rana Musleh

Grocery Store, 8:43 PM

The store is nearly empty.
Fluorescent lights hum louder than the people.

A cart rolls slowly down the aisle,
one wheel ticking with every turn.

Bread goes in.
Milk goes in.
Eggs go in.

Pause.

The phone comes out.
The calculator opens.

Numbers are whispered under the breath
like a private argument.

Bread goes back.

A hand lingers on the shelf a moment longer
than it needs to.

Cereal goes in.
Cereal goes back.

Yogurt turns in the air,
studied from all sides
before returning to its row.

The cart grows lighter
as the walk continues.

By the time the register appears,
it holds only what can’t be negotiated.

The conveyor belt feels too wide
for what is placed on it.

The receipt prints longer
than the list of items.

Outside, the night air is cold and honest.

​Inside the bag,
there is space where dinner used to be.

Theme: Nutrition / inequality

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Rana Musleh is a student at Lehman College and a writer whose work focuses on dignity, hunger, and the emotional realities of food insecurity. Her work has been published by West Side Campaign Against Hunger and Poetry X Hunger. She uses poetry to explore how memory, culture, and inequality shape access to food and belonging. Through poetry, she hopes to turn awareness into empathy and empathy into action.