Clump

There is a clump of mascara on her eyelashes as she explains to me the rhetorical perspective of her pet iguana, who she aptly named Gomez. She blinks and she has trouble opening her eye, but it snaps open as the iguana looks at me without interest. I only understand every third word she says and it sounds more like a song I heard on a boat when I was three as it made its way through Niagara Falls. The woman drifts away and I continue on my way to the supermarket on Polk and Clay- the Big Apple Discount store, where the oranges are pretty and the rice comes in bulk. As I exit, the flowers in the front of the store look sad and in their indignation, dispose of their colors and expel them into the air like perfume, stinging my eyes and turning the world into a kaleidoscope.

- word provided by MV