The white haired woman coming out of the store

Is herself a product of our society.

She's got her aluminum throwaway pan

In her grocery cart with a plastic sack 

Of canned goods keeping it weighted

So the wind doesn't blow it away.

I figure she just purchased her cranberry sauce, 

Sweetened condensed milk, and canned pumpkin pulp.

She steps out into the light of the parking lot

Headed for her Cadillac.

Her face is pale and drawn.

Her eyes are cold as bleak November.

Her mouth hangs open like a beak

Through which she draws her measured breaths.

"This may be my last Thanksgiving," 

She's told them again

To guilt them into coming,

And to getting them there 

By 2 o'clock Thursday afternoon just as she wants.

She can't help it,

Anymore than the plastic container of fruit cake filling

That waits on the shelf to be bought in December.

She is the product of a society

That gives such few and such fatal opportunities

For women to get what they want.

-jenn