Cosmopolitan

The cashier at the grocery story melted.

She became a pool of glass on the floor.

The chemicals that had been her makeup

separated from the glass and congealed

on the mirror-like surface of the pool.

The chemicals reflected bright rainbows.

Like small, soft mountains around an ice lake

the cashier’s crumpled clothing cast shadows

around the periphery of the glass.

A woman with a shopping cart waited

to be checked out. It was the express lane.

But now the cashier was a pool of glass.

The woman with the shopping cart sighed, groaned.

Her cart contained a dozen eggs, vodka

and a Cosmopolitan magazine.

The woman with the Cosmopolitan

stepped forward and leaned across the counter.

She looked down over the conveyor belt

at the shiny pool of glass on the floor.

The glass reflected her face back at her.

The woman scowled, licked an index finger

and smoothed-out the gloss on her lower lip.

The pool of glass that had been a cashier

glittered under the store’s fluorescent lights.

The woman with the Cosmo straightened up,

sighed again, and waited to be checked out.