TheBanyanTree: I don't want to die at the mall
Julie Anna Teague
jateague at indiana.edu
Tue Mar 16 06:31:42 PST 2004
(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
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