Tonight, I Go Shopping with Woman

The place --- a limbo, a mall
a branch of Marco Polo's voyages to Cathay,
a store by the name of Macys
0n I-65

To my mind, a suffocating mace is Macys
To my eye, a maze of spun polyester,
and of panties, likewise, spun
from petroleum residues,
a poster shop of model girls and model boys

a little bony around knees and hips,
looking like no way they could survive the next great famine
...Macys and tedium, and a spouse who would rather shop all day
than stare down museum corridors at finer exhibits

And then, the lights are offed,
and the burglar proof grills clang shut,
and me thinks, that to be locked in here an eternity
would be a cruel, cruel fate.
It would be useless to scream,

for who would hear you but mannequins
which in time, you'd be turned into one of them
eyelash-less and bald,
and white as chalk

forgetting that once upon a distant time
you were man, you had hope
before you were zapped
while shopping with woman
in mall.