is the name
of the thrift store,
which smells
like perfume
and mothballs.
If you added onions,
it’d be like lit class
with Ms. Miller,
who smells
like all three
when she leans in
with hot breath
and recites
Shakespeare.
To be or not to be: that is the onion, Walt likes to say.
I laugh,
thinking about Ms. Miller
among the dizzying
racks and racks
of used clothes,
old books and records,
handmade jewelry,
weird pottery duck mugs,
frog ashtrays,
and other decades-old knickknacks.
Hey you, what’s funny? Cruz asks,
popping up
from behind a rack
of old, wooly coats
with Sam’s arms
enveloping him.