The Going Rate

She touched my arm and said she didn't know

how I did it all and still looked like that.

I said thank you in the conference hall's glow

and kept my smile exactly flat.

That night at the sink I ran the math.

Forty minutes every morning. Five years

of primer, base, the serum, the path

of mascara. The shelf. The smears

of brown on the cotton pad, placed there

beside the faucet. The face I found

beneath — the jaw, the skin, the bare

posture. Something unwound.

She meant it kindly. I know that much.

It's just the compliment and the cost

arrived together, and her touch

on my arm felt like something crossed

off a list somewhere. Not cruel.

Just how it lands — the thing

you spend your mornings on, the fuel

of it, the forty minutes, and then: nothing

but a kind word. Well-meaning.

The shelf still there in the dark.

The forty minutes still convening

every morning. Still leaving a mark.