European Organic Manicure, My Cure (?) (A Poem About a Groupon)

by Lauren Rodrigue

One or three manicures or pedicures
up to 67% off
at Magnolia European Organic Spa in Midtown
might get
me
one or two goodmornings from niceboys
or three or four niceworks
or goodjobs
from my boss especially if I chose a color that really
popped
against my keyboard
(like those seven or twelve vintages of coral
from Essie — one or three hues more tolerable
than cat tongue)

But then if I spent seventeen or
twenty-four less
hours: chewing I mean
reallyripping at my cuticles on the subway or
made one- to several-hundred less typos
texting
starting shit
and clawing at the delete button or
deathgripping at seven to ten
millionjillion beers on weeknights
at the bar or couchbound
feverplucking at
nonEuropean nonOrganic
bottomofthebag Doritos
(notMexican either)
all the time —

— I guess I could save 100% by not purchasing one
or three
cheap manicures.

Or even I could do my own nails
but that would require three or seven
winehours and five or infinite WestWings and then we’d be
100%
right where we
started
(bigmess)

Lauren Rodrigue should probably just unsubscribe from Groupon emails but then, what of her art?

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