Denise Duhamel Poem

Permanence

The barista at the coffee shop is covered in tattoos. She says there
are only two ways they hold her back. 1. She can’t work at
Starbucks. 2. She can’t wear a corsage, since she’d just be way too
busy, and this makes me laugh. She says no to gifts from prom
dates—the wrist corsage, the pinned corsage; no to bridal
bouquets, the get-well-soon carnations. One day soon her mother
will insist on sympathy wreaths around her coffin, which is closed,
lest she be confused with the flowers.

-Denise Duhamel