Salvation Army Shopping Experience
It was the aisle
with fragile items,
once precious crystal vases,
trinket dishes,
a Japanese tea cup.
An old man reached for a snow globe,
wound it up and
flipped it over.
Fake snow fell
in slow
motion
to the muffled
low battery version
of Silent Night.
A monk, nearby
in his heavy gold robe,
rushed over like a child,
and curiously
joined the old man.
They watched
and smiled
with their heads leaned in
toward one another.
Waiting in the Lobby of my Psychologist’s Office
I was waiting in the lobby of my psychologist’s office.
A woman walked in
with a cast on her right hand.
The cast had a stretched out,
dirty,
pastel,
heart-print sock over it.
She sat down
in the tweed teal waiting room chair across from me.
She quickly rummaged through her large purse to
pull out her makeup bag.
I tried not to watch
as her inexperienced left hand
shook uncontrollably.
I tried not to watch
as she dipped the eye shadow
applicator
and smothered it with blue.
I couldn’t watch after that.
Jennifer Lothrigel is a poet and artist residing in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Trivia - Voices of Feminism, Narrative Northeast, Poetry Quarterly, The Tishman Review, Cordella Magazine and elsewhere.