Don’t Leave The Register

L.M. Cole

Don’t leave the register.
There is a customer in the fitting room. 
Someone is singing opera in the shampoo aisle
— Puccini with the Pert and the Pantene.
The sun has set below the lip of the valley’s bowl.

Don’t leave the register. 
Nobody has been in for hours.
Someone is smoking in the rafters
— the manager, absent, the vapor vague as whatever. 
The intercom crackles, static, off, static, off. No message.

Don’t leave the register.
There is still a customer in the fitting room.
The singing has stopped; the shelves are stocked.
— the light is flickering in the parking lot, flash, off, flash, off.
The camera overhead is watching, or isn’t, but it’s there.

Don’t leave the register.
Is there still a customer in the store?
How many hours have passed, standing here alone
— locked in the fluorescent beam of the storefront?
The manager is somewhere in the rafters, whatever. 

The lights will turn off soon. The rafters will be emptied.
The static cracks to the pulse of faltering parking lot lights.
Static, off, flash, off, static, flash, smoke, vapor. 
There was never a customer in the fitting room. The light is broken.
Somewhere in the back aisles, someone is singing.

L.M. Cole was once an assistant supervisor and donation center lead for a blood bank. She has also been a trainer in almost every other company she’s worked for, which is both fulfilling and disheartening. She has poems published in Roi Faineant, Unfortunately Lit, Morning Fruit Magazine and forthcoming in Olney, Moss Puppy, Gastropoda and others.  She can be found on Twitter: @_scoops__