After the vegetable fritters
and the molten mocha cupcakes,
before we were ready to slip back into the laziness
of our precious day of rest,
Lisa Jenkins and I decided to go SKUA shopping.
With our shopping bags in tow, we took an indirect route:
a zigzag between buildings in a futile attempt to avoid the wind.
“My little knee caps are frozen,” she remarked
as we waddled along like penguins in our Big Red coats.
I imagined her knee caps protesting the cold
by shivering furiously. My fingers always go numb first.
She was hoping to find some small box or bin
for her desk, “to organize” she said.
I wanted trinkets for an art project.
We looked at shoes and clothes,
gawked at the mysterious food items that had long expired and
looked as if they might belong in Shackleton’s hut,
skimmed over books and poked through leftover toiletries.
I found a familiar looking body powder called “Honey Dust.”
It was the same kind my mother wore when she was younger...
as a child I used to open the tin, wave the feather duster around
and stick out my tongue to catch the taste of it from the air.
Without mentioning this, I put the tin in my bag.
Lisa found a small, peach plastic basket for her desk.
I took a metallic Christmas bulb,
some stray game pieces and a red shelf.
And so, behind the purple door of
this small building in Antarctica,
on the first Sunday of the winter season,
our humble material wishes were granted.
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