Glizzy

There are glizzies somewhere, but not here
Says an incense wisp of thought as it escapes my brain into the lunch rush kwik trip

I walked a bit of the earth
In a colder-than-should-be spring
Watching birds chase each other in mating dance exuberance
winter is not done with our part of the world
it breathes from the soil and catches breezes and chills a man
licking and wandering

Still, my head was high and my eyes were sharp
I’ll have a glizzy soon
i thought

My shitkicker shoes, blown out at the sides, tread flapping and ducklike over the cheapest asphault available. The sun was an angry white bead, glaring at her subjects. I was strangely uncomfortable. This is familiar territory, thought I. This is where I live. But something was off. Something was unknown.

I walked into kwik trip with something like an inhale. Here is where i visit every day. Here is where there are glizzies. Youth is pressing outward, for novelty and risk. Maturity wants things familiar, wants constancy. Here i breathe in the familiar. The steady routine.

I approached, with admittedly naive optimism, the glizzy station. As I rounded the corner, my eyes lowered to the sterling rollers where glizzies should be, and there was nothing.

The absence had presence. I stopped like a cough in physical discomfort to witness the empty glizzy station. Finely machined, stainless steel rollers, heating elements, a front-facing facefront that shows the most beautiful glizzy you’ve ever seen. Inactive. Dead. Nothing.There are glizzies somewhere, but not here

And of course my thoughts unspool into ragged tendrils. How can you think about anything when everything is bumping up against something else? There are no glizzies. What does it mean? What is in a glizzy? Who made this glizzy cooker-display-machine? Who drove the truck to get the product here before? Why did his great-grandmother commit suicide? How many glizzies can i fit in a fannypack?

Everything is touching everything else.

Still haven’t tracked down a glizzy. They’re common, robust, and you can buy a whole pack of them for next to nothing. Eat a glizzy today, so you can remember it tomorrow.