Arms full of hand-woven jackets plucked from warehouse racks,
I wade into the dressing room, too many women trying on garments
from Blanco Negro, Iridium, Colourz, White Rice,
elbowing into four narrow mirrors propped against one wall.
Linda promised to stop me from buying too much,
but “I need” and “I want” prevail.
Stuffed into a white plastic grocery bag are $154 worth of clothes.
Flushed from the bargains, I relax as my friend drives toward lunch.
The car inches up Harvard St., passing an old woman, (maybe my age)
wearing a flat straw hat and fuchsia shirt,
pulling her supermarket cart piled high with black garbage bags
bulging with soda cans. Ahead, a man, in a conical hat, clears the way,
shifting boxes that stand waist height against the furniture store.
His cart finally free, she follows,
as if they were leading water buffalo across farm land in Vietnam.
Published in Out of Line