The architectural features 
of the buildings across the way 
seem to dissolve into Stygian gloom, 
but the pharmacy’s lit window, 
awning still furled above, 
alchemizes the night, the way 
a plane’s bejeweled beauty—
navigation light on port wingtip 
ruby, on starboard wingtip emerald, 
on tail, diamond white—
exalts the deep black sky 
it glides across. 

Mysterious as heraldic signs 
without a key, red and green liquids 
gleam like crystals of carnelian 
and tourmaline in two suspended 
glass show globes with necks wrapped 
in gold. The wide red and blue ribbons 
hanging from the ceiling, narrowing 
as they descend, are pure staging—
as if something festive, sportive or patriotic 
is going on, or soon approaching. 

And the shine and verve are not 
extinguished by “EX-LAX” 
following “PRESCRIPTIONS DRUGS” 
under the “SILBERS PHARMACY” sign, 
or the prosaic re-iteration 
of what appears to be the same item 
packaged in blue with red labels 
taking up the window’s horizontal center—
deodorant powder? Epsom salts? 
Ah, maybe it’s the store’s discreet treatment 
of private purchases that’s suggested? 

A pharmacy looking just 
like this one occupied the corner 
of the Bronx block I grew up on. 

Turn the corner and discover 
the exhausted tailor 
hunched over his sewing machine 
in the window of his shop, 
tattooed number showing on his forearm. 
A few steps down the hill, 
see the cobbler driving nails 
into the soles of shoes. 
A few steps more, find the window 
of the musty vegetable store 
with its unintentional exhibit 
of empty wooden crates—
not even hairy carrots 
and Argus-eyed potatoes. 

I think I loved that drugstore window 
for its ineffable excess, 
the way it overflowed 
the humbly referential: 

the brio of those pennants 
without a team, the secret contents 
disguised in uniforms of blue 
and red, the glow of those 
unknowable fluids. 

*After Drug Store (oil on canvas, 1927) by American artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967):

Publisher’s Note:

The poet chose the above version of the painting because its effect seems most connected to her poem. Image is reproduced here from ArtistLimitedPrints at Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1064826523/edward-hopper-drug-store-1927-art-print

She also provides this link to another version as well as details about the painting at the Museum of Fine Art, Boston:
https://collections.mfa.org/objects/33293

Links were confirmed on 4 September 2025.

Bio: Judy Kronenfeld