Poem Sunday - In the Department Store

"In the Department Store," 

by Marge Piercy

The women who work at cosmetics

counters terrify me. They seem molded

of superior plastic or light metal.

They could be shot up into orbit

never mussing a hair, make-up intact.

When I walk through, they never pester

me, never attack me with loud perfume,

never wheedle me into a make-over.

Perhaps I scare them too, leaking

some subversive pheromone.

I trot through like a raccoon

in an airport. They see me,

they look and turn away. Perhaps

I am a project they fear to tackle

too wild, too wooly, trailing

electrical impulses from my loose

black hair. They fasten on the throat

of the neat fortyish blond behind me

like stoats, dragging her to their

padded stools. A lost cause,

I sidle past into men's sporting

gear, safe but bemused, wondering

if they judge me too far gone

to salvage or smell my stubborn

unwillingness like rank musk.