Shopping with Whitney Houston

Thrift store shopping is better than crack. I warm
up with a casual inspection of
the “Home Goods,” picking up the tiny worn
Chinese vase somebody used to love.
When I hit “Ladies Shirts,” endorphins peak.
Cacophony of sliding hangers, metal
hooks on metal bars, and then the meek
tick of plastic against plastic. I settle
into my high. Until I hear, lapping at
the brackish, foamy, glass-flecked shores of my head,
a song. My hum is automatic and flat:
with somebody who loves me and then, like lead
in a pillowcase upside my head, I see
the headlines, never the ones I thought I’d see.

Then other headlines, smaller ones, about me.
I see his wide blue eyes and hear his voice,
atonal, almost whispered, you’re gonna fuck me,
again. His fist waits, as if I have a choice,
then softens to a strangle around my neck.
Thirteen years I tried to drink away
those vapid hands, but all I got was sick.
So I understood her willowy display
on People magazine, but most people ask
such stupid questions about drugs and fame
and love. They mistook the woman for the mask,
Incapable of reading past her name.
A screeching hanger snaps the moment back,
to the basement smell, the vase with its tiny crack.