Cash Register Sings The Blues
of steel and plastic I dreamt of being melted
down into a dancer's pole in Vegas. I wanted
a woman in a headdress glossy as a gossamer
to wrap her lithe limbs around me. I wanted
to be strewn in lights, smell her powdery perfume.
Instead I'm a squat box crouched behind the counter,
noticed only if someone robs me. I'm touched all day,
but never caressed. Listen: somewhere gold tokens
spew from slots. I want to drink space-alien-dyed martinis on black
leather sectional couches. Watch tipsy women with acid-
washed jeans and teased hair dreamily press their faces
against slot machines while people treat currency
carelessly as spit in the wind.
I'm everywhere you look, ubiquitous and ignored.
I'm the container of your dreams that tossed aside my own.
I've kept my clean, sleek lines but you never say a thing.
Feed me, feed me with the only love we know.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Maria Nazos, “Cash Register Sings The Blues,” from Still Life, (Dancing Girl Press & Studio, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Maria Nazos and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.