Jeannine Shackelton

All Purpose We always eat our lines slivered down, cleaning the twigs from our plate. Good women we are, you and I, one old, one new, one borrowed and one used, sucking up the wedding thumb. Huddled, we chew well- bruised oranges, digesting all the ulcered fruit. Good women we are. Carbon-copy black, dropping from the machine, amileaminute white, brown-belly, beer-belly, crawling up the sand. yellow-bellied women we are. Good, yes for not remembering what page we're on, slipping from the shadowed shelves like bleached flour.

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