Women of the Wall
Julia Hwang
The lady against the wall RANTS,
says she ain’t inoculated, won’t ever be inoculated,
pricked only by a gas station rose and some hard/fast fun—
Drugs, don’t fuck with ‘em! Big Pharma, I mean—
Sure, I shake.
Thirsty, she says, says she’s damn thirsty,
asks me to buy her a pack of Reds.
And I think I understand, once a lady sixteen smoking
cloves, parched by men in cracked leather.
The entrance bells lag and my hair nearly tangles
in a fly trap twisting from the ceiling.
I apologize to a spider hung up on all eight feet.
The lady on the wall, slumped and smudged,
camouflages into sheets of 10-cent rebates, existing only
between diet pop and honey buns and EZ-ERECTION pills.
I grab water, gesture at the smokes behind the counter,
ask the clerk for two scratchers, Just a little treat.
For a moment, I feel sorry for her— the lady I mean—
And in the next, I got a penny in my hand, us both scratching mad.
Julia Hwang writes from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her work, narrative and women-centric, has recently been featured in several online publications such as Full House Literary Magazine and Molecule – A Tiny Lit Mag.