Cold Radiations

A purse is robbed
and bothered.
All of them turn up empty,
every one you see.

At night in any dream
the perfect death is planned
and mourned. The djinn cries
generated automatically:
when a purse
is rubbed into the lamp,
the warmth of hands
inside all the last pockets,
faith in all the answers,
and mail order novenas.

Mother's purse was never like that,
equipped
with a fold out cup,
her Salem menthols
and a pack of tissues.
No genies. She opened it
close to the cold air cooler
in the dispensary
where Billie shelled
out pills for diamonds.
All of the patients trying to get out
the pill shop doors and windows
like cattle in the chute.
The cold air drifted up,
under long ago
into the Arizona radiations.

When her purse turned up empty,
as they all do,
the origin of novenas was unknown.