Grocery Run for Grandpa

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]ruises 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.”

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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

                                                       to

                                                          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.

Issue 52 • Fall 2025

Fiction

Poetry

Fiction

Poetry