I KNEW I WASN’T POOR
I knew I wasn’t poor, because I had a choice: buy tampons or birth control pills. I shoplifted. When I opened the oven door, splitting the closet-sized kitchen in half, my only plan was heat. The ice smooth on the inside of the windows, the no money to pay the bill. I knew I wasn’t poor, because I could always eat at the restaurant where I waitressed. I never went hungry. I waited for the rich customer, bored with her herb chicken— to toss it: No, I don’t want to take it with me. We’re going to the theater. I secreted that half-plate of turned- over food, and like a miser or explorer, stashed it in my locker in the restaurant’s dark hallway. I had no shame, I was finding my solution: how to eat, how to live, I felt accomplishment. No insurance for my beater car, I threw parking tickets in the backseat with a flurry. I grew rich in my imaginings. The People’s Clinic when I was too sick to last it out. I knew I wasn’t poor, and when my clothes wore raggedy and I got angry at what I couldn’t have, I walked into the department store with an empty bag, filling my heart, filling the holes that were everywhere. JAN BEATTY
