At a Supermarket Christmas Aisle

AT A SUPERMARKET CHRISTMAS AISLE

ART By John Tovar

Underneath Silent Night icicle lights, I see this napkin-skin girl, gowned in a black and grey coffin-shaped blouse, start to stuff Santa hats down the hatch of her leather pants.

Her leather squeaks like my mousy shoes storm-soaked by my grandma’s-dead blues. The girl’s hair curls like champagne bubbles, so she must be a friendly talk! But, wait, her eyes are Jack Frost button rocks and her charcoal pastel lipstick accents all her purple acrylic nails.

I want to ask her “how do I look?” with Rudolph antlers on, but her leather keeps eating more snowflake trinkets and ornament orbs. In every bit she steals, her napkin-skin pales and tears

the same way my grandma’s moved every time she entered that Oncology room. The doctor’s chemo killed her twice: once by poison and once by family fights. I see the girl coughing like a cat. I run to help her out as this cop cuffs her wrist. Perhaps she already knows loneliness.

Illustration by Madison Hoiby