three angels

there are these three Japanese angels in a shop crammed with pink knee high boots, old lacy sundresses, undercover agent hats, and smart mailman shirts. i love walking into their shop during my lunch hour, and i love the immediate sensory overload of looking at all the belts and shoes and shirt patterns dripping from hangers down the ceiling to the floor.

They sit three in a row like fairy nymphs, good manners and good posture and immaculately creative hair. One with a wash of dredlocks, one with a clara bow bob bleached pale brown, and one with an incredible blonde creation gelled up into a pompadour. It's at moments like these that femininity reaches its highest form.

There are so many ways to be a woman, but so many ways that strike me as confused or excessive, but in its highest form it's a delicate construction just like loops of icing on an elaborate birthday cake about to topple over.

Dear lady, your hair is so beautiful? Who cuts it for you? How do you get it like that? You have such a wonderful style.

Their laughter, so breezy and confident, yet couched in mystery. The two smile as the one scrawls down a phone number on a piece of paper. Even her handwriting is delicate and beautiful; her smile makes you blush, the real kind, not the kind you have to paint on like the kabuki queens at the Chanel make-up counter. She asks nice questions about my life.

And when I walk out, the hangerfuls of dresses swing back and forth framing the three women like a bright painting.