On Seventh Avenue, marching earnestly uptown to rendezvous with Bhutanese art
at informative Rubin Museum,
black mail-order canvas shoulder bag slapping my side,
passing Loehmann’s, designer odd-lot emporium, noting miscellaneous shoppers waiting for 11 a.m. opening—
blonde pony-tailed jogger in shorts, sleek Hong Kong tourist couple,
woman with Jackie Kennedy pill box hat perched on graying head—
rounding 18th street, then looking back; oh homesick angel,
I think I see my Mama—Mama Mama who loved to shop
while, I, a shy and serious child, did not, and here I go—
floating, floating through gilt Loehmann doors, dazed abductee
into dreamy saucer,
following yawning dreadlocked security guard jingling keys, rap-mix store music billowing sound-clouds onto sidewalk:
This is why this is why this is why I’m hot, (Something) fly, (Something) not;
bewildered in track-light foyer, faltering at the escalator then jumping on;
cruising through floors of red-sequined spaghetti-strap gowns, black Capri pants,
leopard stripes and stirrups,
fingering half-silky slips and studded belts, antelope heart skipping,
holding up V-neck blouses draped on my breasts, turning for the mirrors,
finally spotting girly pinkish handbag with painted silver clasps and knobs
for myself,
marked down to $12.99; why not why not
look Mama look at me now I’m getting hot
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Lisa Bellamy’s poems have appeared in Triquarterly, The Sun, Fugue, Massachusetts Review, New Ohio Review, Cimarron Review, Tiferet and PANK, among other magazines. In 2008 she won the Fugue Poetry Prize and received honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007. She studies poetry with Philip Schultz at The Writers Studio, where she also teaches. She graduated from Princeton University and attended New York University’s graduate program in Journalism.
