Laura Sandage: Listen
Checkout Line
(Laura Sandage)
CHECKOUT LINE Laura Sandage 2004
A Beatles song is playing on the store P.A.
Gum packs shining in their tidy rows
The sun outside a million miles away
How all this holds together no one knows
(chorus)
Standing still in the checkout line
Tired people look the other way
Don't have much to say, in the checkout line
And I claim them all as mine
The grumpy clerk has suffered through a tiring day
A gray-haired man behind me scolds his little boy
None of us is separate though it looks that way
And flowing down my cheeks are tears of joy
chorus
Checking in at the check-out line
Everything I see part of the grand design
Checking in I find that if we're all connected
The human race will be just fine
Underground, underneath the vinyl floor
Under all the cold cement, we know it's there
The center of the earth, the living, molten core
It warms our feet even when we're unaware
chorus