Economics: The Language of Kings
- Spare Rib
- May 18
- 1 min read
By Anna Costello, Art by Nerissa Chin

patience: a woman
in a starched pantsuit, eating a sandwich
on an edge of curb. lips salty, swollen and
triumphant. grey-silver spreads wings from her face —
those other lives kick up dirt and smoke
but her waiting is brave work.
strong labor, heaving dunlap
potato sacks in summer sun,
balancing individual water drops —
feminine work, to get old slowly.
she makes Time, she is the mother
and baby in the river and Holy Spirit.
she’s had a thousand miscarriages –
seconds mutated into ischemic strokes.
she is an immigrant, enters silently into lives,
well-adjusted to blurry voices, lights.
her colleagues live by Hobbes
and know only half of human nature.
patience: what kind of conquest raises a child?
her gaze is loose and comfortable,
the eye resting easily in its socket;
she vibrates at low frequency,
constant hum of recognition.
she is ancient radio waves, crackling and wise
except for her skin – soft tears
of a younger, tired woman gather in crevices.
she lets roaring car-wind
dry the whites of her eyes.
an impulsive attraction to chemical death
sweeps her dreams, bundled in linen
on a long stream of asphalt
dragging trail of rainbowed gasoline.
something still to learn from the thick stench of progress –
it leaves no room for living.
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