The cost of living
The checkout girls observe
opportunity costs of poverty.
Arthritis swells away
intimacies of small change.
Stork margarine. Daz. Value scones.
They see her carefully save
a plastic charity token, knuckling it
into a purse with tens and coppers.
Roast beef and Yorkshires microwave meal for one.
She talks – of weather, grandchildren,
the hurrying year – while her capacious bag
swallows its meagre ration. She lingers,
prolonging sight of the day’s only face.
Cat food: one tin. Powdered milk. Custard creams.
A queue ticks beyond her hearing aid.
(Smoked salmon. Organic lemons. Tuscan olives. Wine.)
She sees only cataracts and smudge,
every day. Every other, if she ekes out the marge,
trading conversation for a slice of toast.
Tinned pears. A potato. Leaf tea.
Third jersey. Gloves. Turn off the fire.
Hot water bottle. Woolly hat. Bed socks.
Fig rolls. Crab paste. Small sliced white.
They remark on her lack, unable to say
when they last saw her nameless familiarity.
They didn’t know her, how far she walked.
Just all she ate for a year
and precisely how much it cost.
This poem was shortlisted in the 2013 Live Canon International Poetry Competition, and published in their anthology.
isabelrogers.org 
[…] The Cost of Living – Isabel Rogers Shortlisted in the same competition as one of my as-yet-unpublish’ds in […]
[…] understanding of the breadth and potential of the English language. (I cannot think of her poem The Cost of Living without welling up.) She’s not paying me to say this – I’ve had my reward many times over in […]
Arrived here via your stint on The Literary Sofa… very limited experience with writing & reading poetry but know I do like ones with a message; be that served up with poignancy or humour or both, ones that stop me in my tracts, direct my thoughts and linger.
So I can see exactly why Isabel C can’t read this one without welling up. It’s such a vivid portrayal & astute snapshot of one woman who represents so many and so much of our society… raw but beautiful☺
Thank you. I think this poem has touched quite a few people, and I’m glad. The things you see in a supermarket queue, and then (being me) imagine.
Yes… clues (and warning signs!) are all around us if we strip away the blinkers… part of the appeal is how you’ve made an ‘ordinary’ situation extraordinary. Love it!
God, Isabel, this has left me in bits.
Searing stuff, and not a wasted word. Brava!
Thank you, Julian. Sorry about the bits.
In a good way, you understand.
‘…knuckling it into a purse….’ — loved that. And ‘…queue ticks beyond…’ . I found this poem very visual, which makes it more meaningful somehow. Followed a ‘tweet’ to this — not often I do that.
If I trust the tweeter I’ll follow them anywhere … thank you.