Kmart: An Elegy

Seeds removed

goop scraped

faces carved

but the candles?

The candles are AWOL,

so in dadly duty I drive

to the “Big K,” as the sign

with the gull-nested angle

proclaims. For a few more weeks.

The news and the thing itself are

not the same thing, the announcement and

the tacked yellow banner are

not the same thing as the shelves

low-stacked with intermittent sweaters,

50 percent off and the shelves themselves $190,

worn and smirched in this stumbling outpost,

workers clinging to it as it clung to this

ledge of a town from which everything

Falls, leaves or burns or dies. Kmart.

A birthday party at noon last Sunday meant

a trip at ten to here for a

pink cat that stuffs itself into a doll,

like a burst button at eight meant

a trip to the notions section at eight-thirty,

and an unexpected houseguest meant

a pillow and sheet set before close,

and like a shuttered factory and a lack of gas money meant

a trip to apply at one of the town’s biggest stores

in hopes of a blue vest and a paycheck.

I got the candles, some socks and a pack of

wide-eyed sewing needles for $17.56

plus a private confession.

Somehow, I give a damn about Kmart.