“It’s almost good,”
she said to her companion
as she held it at arm’s length
and squinted at it:
a landscape with cows.
She checked the price. Five dollars.
All the art at the Salvation Army
Thrift Store was on sale today.
The frame alone. And the colors
were hers, western blues
and eastern greens, the vivid
black-and-white Holsteins.
“What I don’t like . . .”
her companion began, and then
the critic entered the deliberations.
“If it weren’t a little ridiculous,
I wouldn’t have it,”
said woman number one,
who took it to the cash
register before she could change
her mind. Out in the parking lot,
in the bright sun,
she knew she’d done the right thing.
Five dollars for all the longing
and self-doubt in her hands.
One cow had raised its square head
to look directly at her.