Desperado by Carolynn Kingyens

Two women, no relation,
both exited a Whole Foods
in somewhat succession,
walked past my Audi Q5,
idling in front.

The first woman wore
jeans, the color of a sand
dollar, and a lemon
meringue-colored sweater
that highlighted her dewy
skin as she sashayed.

‘Yale Law’ emblazoned
in bold text on both sides
of her canvas bag,
in case I missed it,
filled, I imagined,
with delicacies
for a backyard boil –
corn on the cob,
red bliss potatoes;
shrimp — crawfish — 
sausage; a bottle
of chilled Riesling.

A man, around the same
age as my father, also sat
idling across from me
inside his Silverado
when the sashayed-one,
a perfect vision,
walked between the chasm
our cars made in the
Whole Foods’ parking lot.

I watched him, watching
her as she walked toward
her Range Rover.

The second woman,
in contrast, wore black
yoga pants stained with
bronze streaks I recognized
from a mist of spray-bleach.

Hair, hurried-damp;
facial features, much fuller,
as she appeared to carry the
burdens of the world
inside her brown paper bag.

The older man kept
inching his Silverado
into the woman’s path,
his face showing
annoyance.

I have seen that look
before on my father’s face
the time he asked me
to skim the aftermath
of a summer storm
from atop the surface
of the pool.

And when my skim-job
didn’t meet the standard,
he would snatch the gigantic
butterfly net out
of my hand, turn his
whole body away from me,
and shake his big, square head — 
a head, I thought,
looked like the shape

of a thumb.

Carolynn Kingyens lives with her beautiful family in NYC. Her poems have been featured in Boxcar Poetry Journal, Glass Poetry Journal, Word Riot, The Potomac, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Across the Margin, and The Orange Room Review. Her poem, “Washing Dishes” was nominated for Best New Poets by Silenced Press.