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The pharmacy smells like floor wax

and the cheap mint of the toothpaste.

I’m standing in aisle four,

looking at the tubes of white paste

like they hold the answer to something.

A woman hits my shoulder with her cart,

not even a 'sorry' or a sideways glance,

just pushes past like I’m a draft of air.

In a puddle of spilled blue soap

the light above me flickers and dies,

and I watch my reflection in the tile

thin out until it’s just a smudge

on the bottom of someone else’s shoe.