The Going Rate

She said have a good one, ma'am

and meant nothing by it, nothing at all,

just the small machinery of a shift

doing its job before the next call.

I smiled. Of course I smiled.

I've been smiling since the age of nine—

since someone said you're prettier

when you don't make that face, and fine,

I learned. You learn.

You buy the thing you came to buy

and take the bag and say you too

and walk back out beneath a pewter sky

and sit a while inside a car

that smells of fast food and old rain,

and look at your own hands on the wheel,

and count the years again.

The lipstick testers on the shelf—

each one worn down a different way,

each one a different woman's want

pressed into color, pressed away.

Ma'am.

The word sits in the chest like a small stone

dropped into standing water.

You don't hear the sound it makes

until you're alone.