The Spree
Zara Raab

Stepping off the lift, lithe, fragrant, she moved

across the plush, high-ceiled room to the

dressing stalls, arriving in time for her

morning ceremony of high couture

and Furstenberg fittings, emerging in

the fullness of afternoon on sunlit

Union Square, gripping the carryall stuffed

with bundles of chic chiffon and cashmere

swathed like infants in pale tissue paper.

Her manicured hand flutters to her mouth,

glee evanescent in the smiling face

as she crosses to the parking garage.

Not today, perhaps, but another time,

later, she will dimly recall as she

makes her way through the palace of Eros,

the natal streams once running with their rich

harvests, pouring into the estuary

just twenty blocks from Saks Fifth Avenue––

and something else––is it terror or awe?

Even at that remove, she will sense its

presence, coursing up the silty waters

whose must smell she remembers from childhood––

like the Coho Salmon returning to

spawn and die in the place they were born.

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