Our handbaskets bump in the checkout line. We smile, shift arms right and left to protect our goods. In your nest: caramel puff corn, chocolate lava cakes, gallon of milk. In mine: a party barrel of German pretzels, key lime pie, and chardonnay. Plus and minus, we celebrate both signs.

Maureen Kingston’s poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Blithe Spirit, Frogpond, Friday Flash Fiction, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Unbroken Journal.