I almost kicked the bucket in a well-known high st mini supermarket

I almost kicked the bucket

in a well-known high st mini supermarket

On an unpleasant  rainy evening

I thought that I really was

about to pop my clogs

There was a poster of a woman with

 a well groomed golden Labrador there

She and the dog smiled because

they were allegedly content with

some product or other

She and the dog smiled as

my heart seemed to be surging

up into my mouth

She and the dog smiled as

 produce swam about before my eyes

I gripped the edge of a shelf

Like a limpet in an atlantic gale

I thought this cannot be

I am too important to my self

It is not the appropriate place

For the end of me
           This was not a good day to die

So I fought back against nausea and panic

“err I don’t feel well”,

I croaked to the manager

He brought me a plastic chair

And I sat on it sweating, and panting,

and gasping the air conditioned air

Staring at a tsunami of shoppers

Surging off fetid tubes and buses

Eager to buy dried pasta, tinned toms,

cheap booze and whatever

Stuff was described as food on the packaging

I watched this sharp elbowed scramble

As my heart slowed down

This was not a good day to die

even if poets are traditionally supposed

to suffer from consumption