Thrift Shop Princesses

Zoë Fluck and Chloe Zuck
were always partying sober,
tanning all summer
and never quite getting their makeup right
like something was off in the mirror
but not enough to fix.

When Zoë had her breakdown
during the autumnal equinox
(she went to bed and stayed there
for a couple weeks, maybe longer),
Chloe was seen drifting around
Novocaine-faced,
in big, collapsing pants,
wearing colored contacts
that felt like small metal objects
lodged in her eyes.

When Zoë finally got Chloe
on the phone,
it sounded less like a conversation
and more like something overheard
through a wall.

“I had a dream,” Zoë said.

“Oh, God,” Chloe said.
“I hate when people do that.”

“No, listen,
I was wearing these big white fur pants
and my father kept telling me
I was sexually ambiguous,
like it was a diagnosis
or a weather condition…”

“Well,” Chloe said,
“I read somewhere that if you sleep
facing the moon at the right angle,
you can expand
your mind or your life or whatever,
I don’t know, it sounded important
at the time…”

By April they were back,
hooliganism,
walking around in oversized corduroy overcoats,
funky hats,
tight flannel pants cutting into them,
taking casual, unnecessary
shots at Orange County
like it had done something personal.

Reviews

[Michael Sun Bear]

Thank you, thank you Philip; I needed that. The “dream” dialogue is hilarious. I could actually hear the voices of the two women; for me sort of a nasally Bronx accent.