SHOWCASE SUNDAY

At the Hardware Store

A blonde in blue-jeans stands behind the counter --
she doesn't know socket-wrench from flat-head driver

but her smile spreads easy as strawberry jam
and her fingers glide over the register

like pond-skaters under a mid-summer moon.
Need a half-pound of Nichol's screw-grip nails,

I say, and she furrows her brow then brightens,
blush staining the constellation of freckles

on her chest and I never wanted to be
a freckle so much in my fifty-year life

then that smile again like a flash of lightning
on a black-cloud day, and I suck in my gut,

smile right back, not sure what I'll do with those nails
but ready to erect a steel skyscraper

and empty my accounts, if that's what it takes.

- Irene Latham

Well, that's me channeling a fifty-year old man. :) Way back when, I worked at Sears in the hardware department... my favorite memories are of sneaking kisses with my hot-n-heavy then boyfriend/now husband. Sweet times...

"Very often we travel the world over in search of what we need and return home to find it."

- George Moore