Grocery Run for Grandpa

By Victor Mendeville

Issue 53 • Spring 2026 • Poetry

This poem won second place in the Spring 2026 Contest Issue judged by Hakim Bellamy, who wrote: “What first caught me about this Victor Mendeville poem was the poet’s ability to build in well-timed turns-of-phrase that are somehow both understated and unforgettable. ‘[B]ruised daikon that smiled in their ridges.’ ‘[L]ike a forklift: drawing forward, stopping for balance.’ ‘[T]he way kids do when they fall and get up and don’t want to cry.’ Lines made more magical in the impressive storytelling of the painfully personal, but otherwise mundane. It was hard to make this entry number two.”

He limped as he brought in the groceries:

the very bags he carried from his doorstep to ours,

a time ago. We brought him bags full of bruised daikon

that smiled in their ridges–pale messy hair for his stews–

only for him to kick the bag by accident.

Slowly, it leaned sideways,

dropped from the

doorstep

cement

like a forklift: drawing forward,

stopping for balance.

Then descending,

He bent down to pick up

the spilled cans and cough drops,

the Gatorade and desserts,

goods in cellophane that tore

like the breath in his lungs,

and the bruising daikon.

Mom hollered from the front seat,

a distance away, by law:

You need help, Dad?

as the screen door hit his back

and the paper bags limped further.

He looked to her and held up his thumb,

the way kids do when they fall and get up

and don’t want to cry.

I’ll let the food spoil,

let my crackers stale,

the milk sour,

throw our cabinets to the floor,

if it means that this isn’t the last

memory I have of him.

Victor Mendeville

Victor Hugo Mendevil is an emerging poet and literary scholar based in Boston. He is a shortlist recipient of the 2025 DISQUIET Literary Prize in Poetry and a finalist of the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award in Poetry. His poetry is published, or forthcoming, in The Malahat Review, Kitchen Table Quarterly, ANMLY, Reverie, Fourteen Hills, Azahares Literary Magazine, Quillkeepers Press, Harbor Review, and Pangyrus LitMag. Victor Hugo is currently pursuing his PhD in English at Northeastern University, where he teaches writing. His research and creative work are deeply rooted in narrative medicine, decolonial poetics, and Indigeno, intergenerational storytelling.

Robb Kunz

Robb Kunz hails from Teton Valley, Idaho. He received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. He currently teaches writing at Utah State University and is the Art and Design Faculty Advisor of Sink Hollow: An Undergraduate Literary Journal. His art has been published in Peatsmoke Journal, the NonBinary Review, and New Delta Review. His art is upcoming in Phoebe, Reed Magazine and Thin Air Magazine.