I.

Mornings and nights we wait across from the Glamour Emporium, but today it seems
          the bus has forgotten us.
A six foot five drag queen sobs into a nearby payphone, a yellowing library copy of
          Wuthering Heights under her arm.
Heathcliff’s wife is back in town and for the time being
          he’s turning his freak light off.
If this incarnation of Catherine would have been on my high school basketball team we
          would have won that playoff game, boxing out their star forward.
But those fingers, tapping frenetically on the trashcan were made to be coiled gently
          around the stem of a Champagne glass.
Another emerges from the Glamour Emporium, shopping bag under arm, running as best
          she can in her size fourteen pumps
across a street named after a Confederate General who died on his horse.
          Traffic comes to a full stop, the aluminum and steel enwombed commoners
knowing royalty when they see it.
           But a moment later she’s gone, exchanging the toxicity of the bus stop with its communal
sweat stains for an air-conditioned sub-compact.
           The driver nods at me, either to convey there’s no shame in public transportation or, that a
mouth is a mouth, I can’t tell.
           By now the phone call is over and Catherine, who would never be called Catherine, or Sarah or
Jennifer, but Yolanda or Crystal or Secret joins me.
           I consider consoling her by telling her men are assholes but then I realize she’s more in the
know than anyone within a hundred mile radius.

II.

That night, stinking of a deep fryer I ride home, and the world’s worst drag queen,
           a face like a Neanderthal, dressed like a grandmother,
gets on and even though there are open seats, she stands.
           “Sir, can you take a seat?” the driver says.
“But I’m a ma’am,” she replies, adjusting her torpedo tits as definitive proof.
           “Sir, I don’t care, can you take your seat.”
“But I’m a ma’am,” she says and back and forth it goes like this, neither side giving an
           inch until the familiar gravity from Glamour Emporium pulls those stars from their seats, its
orbit making them shuffle towards the exit.
           I follow, and as I peel off into a different corner of the night, I watch the glittering shower of
halters and micro-minis scatter.
           This city may never win a Superbowl—the drugs are just too damn good—but if a starship were
to land in the third ward, humankind’s grace, beauty and power would be
           well represented by the women of the Glamour Emporium.

Michael Graham works in a medical library by day and by night teaches poetry workshops in Washington State prisons where he has become a master of guiding students out of diatribes that usually start with, “That poem reminds me of when I was shot five times.” His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, most recently Other Voices, Monday Night and South Dakota Review. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University.

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