Saturday in E-Mart

In E-Mart we find a box of brownskinned 
Chico or Sapodilla beside green bayabas

in plastic sleeves. The old Star
Margarine from your childhood

is in its familiar yellow plastic yellow tub, but now
goes under the label Star Classique. You still wonder

how tins of liver spread came to be named Reno;
how many times you ate breakfasts of fried egg

and Vienna sausages; if calavaza is the same as kabocha,
moringga the same as malunggay. The shelves

in every aisle are packed with jars and containers
inviting you to look, to listen for the crackle of crisps

through foil, to what bids you enter that space, trust you'll
recognize it if not by touch then by sight, smell, taste.

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