Pharmacy

The grass is covered with a brittle frost,
As customers line up
At the clapboard house,
Under the painted sign of a mortor
And the club for crushing powders

In the bay window display
Apothecary bottles
One of the old fashioned scales
With its outspread pans
Like the arms of a crucifix,
Jars of Bromo-seltzer.
Folded up wheelchairs
A brested dummy’s mastectomy bra.

Now the door opens with a cattail
Of jingles, the vintage cash register
Rings up its penny change,
And inside the coughs and sneezes,
The addicts slumped in their niches
Trying to hoodwink the pharmacist
By tapping their counterfeit canes

And from isles, the fishy smell
Of vitamins and ointments
Where heavy feet pace
The cracked wooden floor
Wearing a path down to dust
Looking for something

“Pharmacy” ~ Judith Harris