Shopping

She goes from store to store
wanting to spend money on herself
to forget him, his belligerent asshole idiot self.

She gets fresh cash from the A.T.M.

Money is beautiful.

The days when bills slide out obediently
the sort of day she wants to meet someone new.

I want to fuck that bitch like nobody’s bizness;
he had said this with his chin lifted, a commendable politics
worth signing a petition
worth losing something over.

Women pushing babies. Starbucks sleepwalkers.
Blank light, indiscriminate shadows.
Glad for her wooden heels clicking

to the mall maybe. New clothes, some makeup.
Magazines. She has perfect fingers,
so fuck him. Fuck his wanderlust.
She picks up something to buy.

Paper-crisp twenties.
The two fives blue as delphinium.

— MARGARET CHRISTAKOS

(Originally published summer, 2001.)