Little Coquette

At the deli, she orders the garden bagel, malt-boiled

on poppyseed. Medium coffee. Almond milk because it’s sweet.

Chocolate rugelach, an afterthought.

In the park, she licks cream cheese from her fingertips,

breaks pieces from her free sprinkle cookie, tosses gently to 

black squirrels, their little paws on her Mary Jane shoes:

patent red pleather they call vegan leather on the shoe website,

but it’s just plastic. And when she’s still renting in old age, And when

she’s taken the shoes of her youth to the Salvation Army, And when

she’s on a fixed income, And when she’s waiting for the direct deposit

of her pension cheque, And when she notices nobody wears shoes

made by child slaves in cute pops of red anymore, 

And when she doesn’t have grandchildren

to correct her, to remind her she can’t say POC anymore, 

And when the new little coquettes sip cat milk in the park, 

still taking pictures in pink bows and pleated mini skirts and braids

because it's the 2020s revival in the Spring/Summer collection, 

And when everyone is wearing cottagecore cardigans

like Taylor Swift or whatever new icon is gracing suburbia, 

And when the record stores sell out of 

Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, 

And when the UN has banned plastic production

because embryos are suffocating in microbeads, And when 

she can’t substitute almond milk because of the global water shortage,

And when seafood is illegal, And when the prairie farmland has burned

as the Pentecostals prophesied—but they were wrong about the rapture

because we’re all still here, buying gasoline on the black market

so the new little coquettes can drive vintage Volkswagen Beetles 

painted like ladybugs and monarch butterflies,

the kind you can only see pictures of anymore—

And when access to internet is a human right but it doesn’t matter

because every job is AI and nobody has worked out a better system

than having careers like Influencer or Empowered Girl Boss, but

the algorithm can do those now too, so 

what else is there to do but drive around like small-town teenagers,

passing around prescription heroin to numb thoughts of red liquorice

while crunching on organic, salted, dried cockroach chips in the passenger seat,

And when the new little coquettes describe the plot of Thelma & Louise,

it sounds just right.

Emily Bulicz-Arnelien