My aunt is picking out blouses and I can’t help but stare:
the woman in fishnets and silver heels tries on cocktail outfits:
floral teacup dresses, lace shirts, floor-length skirts
golden, dramatic, matching the length of her glued-on lashes
and cheekbones higher than the Victoria Peak.
Her beau, an Australian Sugar, dandies himself,
taking a top hat off the mannequin, adding in a cane,
playing dress-up: he’s now a flaming-haired flâneur
from Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe—
the all-black outfit, hand over chin, pondering,
lying back while the woman’s the bold one.
The gold digger keeps asking about prices,
though she’s not the one with the wallet. I look at necklaces,
wondering how much money she plans on spending—
maybe after the next couple thousand, she’ll flee this man
and pick up a new one who’s hanging around an overpriced pub:
greasy fingers, mid-life crisis, loser back home,
ready to score big in Asia.
My aunt whispers, “It’s all happy shopping for now.”
I look at this woman, remembering all those Australian
and British men in Singapore night clubs who wanted to wine and
dine me, or that businessman from yesterday’s happy hour
who offered to buy me a red dress,
fly me to an Ivy League ball in Tokyo.
It’s a weird life. But who really holds the power?
Should I have gone off with that man,
taken the dress, seduced him on the dance floor,
make him buy me double shots of whiskey?
No, but I’ll take the weirdness and the power,
and I think back to Manet, how the nude woman
acts so unabashed, like she’s laughing at the viewer,
as my aunt is too busy buying tight sweaters plus a watch for me,
as we’re leaving and the Korean woman tries on
a top hat headband as her dandy admires her head of hair,
both their hats in tow like we’re in Paris at the turn of the century.
Is this the couple of the ages? Who are we anyway?
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