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The elderly Amish woman checks out at Wal-Mart—
her shopping cart neat with simple cans and white rice,
the staple foods
her Kansas land cannot, in early spring, if ever, impart.
She glimpses the checker with an efficient smile, nice
like weathered wood.

Her dark gingham dress and clean white apron shine
starkly under the fluorescent buy-all bulbs overhead.
Our number four lane
is quiet, patient—no one else in our slow line
except the two of us, nearing the muttering dead
of night, the gentle pain

of shopping alone. After the rhythm of red-eye scan and
beep, she pulls no plastic card from her small black
purse. She fingers
each crisp bill separately, handing each over, and
counting silently with eyes that touch the lack
of progress, she decides to linger.