CONVICTS

When I get to Modells, I part hands with my mother.
She lets me go, and I always find my way
to the pet store section, to the mangy, blank-eyed spider monkey in his cage. He knew I couldn’t
buy him (I thought), but if I spent time meeting his gaze,
I was gaining a kind of penance.

When I wander back, it is through the forest
of the floor lamp section, my face flaring white,
the dust motes crackling, full of electricity.
The mannequins' eyes follow me,
always a desperate, bird-nest blue. According to my brother, they are convicts,
murderers and the like, sprayed in plastic;
their damnation to be stunted in such
poses of the beautiful,
to be kept that half-inch of distance from us.
I know I shouldn’t believe him.
I find my mother’s hand, grasp it,
ask for an Orange Crush, go blank.