secondhand viewing of what was mine

You want to stop at that store. You are looking for a pair of work pants. We have been through this before. I paw through the racks of secondhand shawls and you sweep the store for Carhartt pants.

I watch a woman with a child pick up a sweater I sold to this store last week. She holds it up and makes her decision. That sweater of mine has lain across my bare breasts sometime between summer and last fall.

I stalk this woman with my eyes as I finger t-shirts and scarves. I try to get you to look as she puts my sweater in her bag, but you don't really care.

I am happy to see someone want my sweater; the one I purchased from a local girl at a tiny store in Wisconsin.

This has happened to me before. At a bar New York, in the bowels of Chinatown dancing on a drunken summer's night, I saw a girl dancing with my mint green leather hand bag. In my disbelief I confronted her.

In her Irish accent she confirmed where she had purchased the bag and asked me why I gave the bag away. For a second, I had no idea.

I was happy to see that bag again; the one I purchased from a souk in Fez.