Slut-Plaid Skirt and the Day It Came From

Oh man today I drank too much chai and got wired
Cursed the body
Cause I can’t have coffee
Left the house
Took my gentrified (that means fat) ass out
Shifted out of anger when
I saw the divinely wretched sleeping trees
Bare and knotted thrown up branches
Spindly reaching arms
And twisty hippy trunks
No leaves
Just the jutted-out hip thigh and ass of
Brown sleeping women standing up
In artistic poses
On traffic islands
I saw flat splayed cactus leaves that I just know are filled with juice behind the spines
And I saw this at the fancy supermarket
Where the aisles of outrageous and bold and ugly and foreign produce
Whittle away my day
My time is available in bulk

I spend the bulk of my time lonely for the heat of a city I left for a man
And the promises he made
I don’t think he can keep.
But maybe he can.
For company,
I spend my days ravaging thrift stores
Sneezing through racks of cracked shoes
Fondling old women’s tossed blouses
And fighting rich bitches’ maids for a lopsided skirt
Gleaning the treasures from the shit on shelves
Thinking inane thoughts and here they are: 
Pull up the hem
Lose a little poundage
Knit these two halves of sweaters together and make something utterly fantastique
Un-darn a toehole and dance all over the world hanging out free
Little polish here on this candlestick
Little 50 years there and it’ll be an artifact
There, I’m Sated

Dragging the booty up to the desk
And watching the woman with the frizzy trash hair
And the broken-in-half tooth ring me up
That crispy beaten down dull-eyed gal gave me a discount—
Felt sorry for me!
How appalling
How generous
How interesting that I have gratitude about it and
How can she possibly tell that I have holes in my heart?
Are they in my face?
I fell in love with her for a split second then snapped out—
All my things
All my other peoples’ things
Came to 8 dollars 17 cents
And only one skirt was too tight but
That’s allll right
Cause I’m cooking tonight