Thursday, April 18, 2013

Beauty Aisle

Beauty Aisle

You’d think they were drinking it,
you’d swear they were drinking it,
the way these boys go through shampoo.

So says a woman in the beauty aisle
of the grocery store. Suds in the
mouth, I imagine it. What cleans a part

of us isn’t meant for the whole,
isn’t meant to be ingested. What
cleans you isn’t food. I worry that

the flowering pears outside won’t
stay flowering long enough for me
to get my fill of walking under gardens,

of looking up at white petals. For
how many more days will the flowers
still be flowers, I grab at any information,

pseudo-calculation, if, last year,
there were still petals in the branches
at the end of April, how many storms will

it take before the blossoms are gone
again. I will never tire of this word,
blossom, swoony, soft, full of air and light.

Outside, through the automatic doors,
there are flowering pears in the lot,
enough flowers now to feed me for the year.

5 comments

  1. I never tire of the word "blossom," either!

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  2. I love a good "snatch of speech" poem! Hooray for everyday eavesdropping and its creative uses!

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  3. I always do pseudo calculations...I never tire of the word blossom...I wonder what washes one part could be used for the other...love this poem (as I always do)...love how mind moves from the tangible into the abstract...thank you for visiting..i Have been so busy and I really don't know why...have a great Thursday Hannah

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  4. I love blossoms too!

    I love eavesdropping for phrases to put in poems, you use your found phrase so well and I like the way you seem to go off at a total tangent but then tie it all together at the end

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  5. I love the topic-switch. Perfect cross-section of a brain's daily life.

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