She sailed down the street like a spinnaker,

a bow wave of bosom before.

In her wake a confusion of shoppers,

as she wheeled to enter the store.

The colours that plastered her person,

turned heads as she powered along

and the breeze from the murmuring people

rose in a crescendo of sound.

 

It bothered her not for an instant,

as she elbowed into the crowd.

She carried away all before her,

she trampled the meek and the cowed.

They fell like wheat to the sickle,

they blew like chaff on the wind.

Rootless they withered in panic,

while she gathered the merchandise in.

 

She heaped up a trolley of booty,

towering it swayed down the isle.

Pushing and shoving she followed

in her own inimitable style.

“Starboard,” she yelled, to the line up,

queued quietly at a cashier.

They blanched and allowed her to pass them.

She was more than the worst they had feared.

 

The tape from the register lengthened;

a yard long it draped in a curl.

“Will that be cash or credit card madam.”

The woman just stood there and stared.

Unfazed by the size of the total,

she opened her enormous hand bag

and fumbled around it’s interior,

to pay for her mountain of swag.

 

Slowly, with growing confusion

she found that she just couldn’t find,

the credit card or pretty cheque book,

she found she had left them behind.

For a moment she faltered, back winded

crest-fallen raised her eyes from the floor.

I’ve decided I’ll not make the purchase.

And so saying sailed out of the store.

 
 

David Garlick, Victoria, 1991