Tongue In Cheek

You keep a joke like a match in your sleeve,
strike it, then tell me you meant the flame.
Your wink edits the evening as it happens—
a cut here, a splice there—
my smile refusing to roll the night back on its spool.

We work the aisles like a rumor:
cart wheels chirping, scanner beeps,
a lime rolled loose into the cereal.
You say, call it even; I lay the receipt
flat on the handle, read the totals aloud.

Half-truths in clamshells,
sample cups sweating at the rim,
a bead of syrup tacky on my thumb—
fluorescents fizzing in the plastic lids.
Your laugh trips over the secret
and keeps the beat anyway.

At the freezer doors, our faces double,
fog clearing, fog returning.
By the registers a lane light clicks to green;
the belt hums us forward—
what you meant the first time arriving in order.

By the checkout flowers,
your cheek finds my hand like it knows the route.
The doorframe keeps our height in pencil,
a notch for now. You say goodnight.
I taste where I’ve bitten my own tongue—
salt, then mint from the aisle we just walked—
and leave the lights to finish telling the truth.