Trophy Rack
She rides into the district with the energy of someone who’s done the math on this city,
blood-red lips and a history that reads more like a greatest-hits than a committee.
Gold heels that exceed the standard rent-to-income ratio
and the dress that made that choice,
she doesn’t make an entrance
–she makes the room reconsider its own noise.
They call her several things that all amount to the same general assessment,
the assessment being that she costs more than the available budget
and the investment
returns something that doesn’t fully translate to a currency you can spend,
but you’ll be trying to account for it until the natural end.
She’s got a collection that she maintains on a back shelf
for sentimentality,
not because she loved them–because winning is its own reality.
They’re catalogued by what they cost
and what they thought the deal was going to be,
the trophy rack–and each one a Ph.D. in what she teaches free.
She doesn’t fake the moaning–she fakes the backstory
–that’s the economy in play.
She shows up as whoever the current situation requires
for the current day,
and when she leaves at four she takes whatever you arrived as at eight,
and leaves the rest of you to figure out what just occurred in this zip code’s fate.
The preacher in the back booth tips her twice because she read his whole presentation,
and smiled the smile of someone who received it as an invitation.
She’s the museum of what men become
when they forget what they are managing,
the trophy rack
–a full accounting of the cost of misunderstanding.