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General Store



Women slap midday pavement in their sandals,
dressed in swimsuits in an assortment of sizes at the hot spring.
Two eleven-year olds sport zero curves, run soupy mud
onto their tiny thighs.

I dive for a hammock with a hat slung low on my forehead
from under which I can still spy
the ample hourglasses of souls, and I speculate

what they do in other days.

One with a face flat and broad, skillet of knowledge,
I imagine flown in from an ancient island. Here
she absent-mindedly rubs her partner’s neck just at the hairline.

My mother dog paddles in an iron-infused pool out of reach.
Her white hair accentuates her blue eyes and suit. She looks over
toward me and sighs. Submerges up to her shoulders.

Two new arrivals are painted. One butterfly tattoo etched
across a chest with wings that seem to flutter above a line of stretchy lycra.
One thousand eyes in this damp span of moth wings

wet with mountain runoff. Another’s thigh wrapped with ink garter.
Trees spring from her waist, toast shoulder blades. Thumbnail spinning wheels
surround ripple-laced ankles.

We meet for a moment, then come apart.
Down the road, lavender farm and crumbling chapel.

Turquoise dresses for sale hang disembodied in front of the general store.

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