Shopping
Shopping
Original Text
Margaret Christakos, Excessive Love Prostheses (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2002): 67.
1She goes from store to store
2wanting to spend money on herself
3to forget him, his belligerent asshole idiot self.
4She gets fresh cash from the ATM.
5Money is beautiful.
6The days when bills slide out obediently
7the sort of day she wants to meet someone new.
8I want to fuck that bitch like nobody's buzness;
9he had said this with his chin lifted, a commendable politics,
10worth signing a petition,
11worth losing something over.
12Women pushing babies. Starbucks sleepwalkers.
13Blank light, indiscriminate shadows.
14Glad for her wooden heels clicking
15to the mall, maybe. New clothes, some makeup.
16Magazines. She has perfect fingers,
17so fuck him. Fuck his wanderlust.
18She picks up something to buy.
19Paper-crisp twenties.
20The two fives blue as delphinium.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright
Copyright © Margaret Christakos and used by permission of the poet. Authorization to republish this poem must be obtained from her in writing.