TheBanyanTree: I don't want to die at the mall

[Julie Anna Teague]

(The strangest thoughts free fall as I pull over in traffic, watching an
ambulance weave it's way to the Sear's entrance of the shopping mall. Just
because.  I don't know.) 

I don't want to die at the mall,
please, God, not in Sear's--
with the ambulance screeching down Third
to my hopeless rescue
while some knucklehead with his stereo up too loud
blocks the intersection--
comparing the various merits 
of Kenmore washer and dryer sets,
or table saws or paint chips,
or looking for the right sweeper bags
(canister type 5055, 5055, 5055
I repeat, so I don't waste a minute
making the right choice, so I'm 
in and out in a flash, just in case).

I don't want to die 
while some stranger with a name tag stands over me
realizing he's lost a commission the hard way.  
Thud, hitting the cold, tiled floor,
under the swinging 90-days-same-as-cash sign.
Right there in Sear's and Roebuck,
(whatever happened to Roebuck) 
who used to put out a catalog every Christmas 
with every kind of toy imaginable, 
whose pages my brother and I 
would circle and dog ear and pray pray pray
for that Christmas haul that would make you think 
you'd died and gone to heaven. 

Julie