Poetry: Automatic Beauty

By: Linda Villamarín

I'm about to take it and she's preparing it for me,

I'll give her a couple of bucks, 

she receives them without looking at me. 

We share a silence and I just look at her. 

She types something into the machine and puts it all in the bag. 

I watch her nimble fingers, 

how she bites her lip while typing, 

her dirty and messy hair, 

her freckles, 

her open top button. 

She is like a forgotten painting, 

beautiful and careless. 

She gives me the bag and finally looks me in the eye. 

And I stop there. 

In her dark, empty and automatic gaze. 

I receive the bag and give her back a smile. 

I walk away with the taste of the most intimate of transactions.