You are closer than the map indicates since you like to be where bodies
advertise inheritance and allegiance. I understand your interests.

This poem is better than your poem about the Galleria in Houston, by the way.
Providence; White Hot Indignance: we invent two separate illusions.

“I just want to go to the mall and have a good time” is only a tiny lie.
You want to watch all the ugly people walk by, just like I like to do.

Our weaknesses are manifold when there’s a threat to our grandfathering. The bar
and grill is present in shopping centers everywhere, so let’s graze a while.

Becca’s mother orders a round of lemon drop martinis. Noonish at the restaurant
inside Saks, we drink and it feels like writing a check to the Red Cross.

I hold out my hand to feel if there’s glass in the window frame because I need
the statistics: annual electricity consumption, the origin of building materials.

Please hurry. Leisure is not enough. Money is not enough. Pages of sod have been
unfolded in the medians of the parking lot. They’ve planned around our traffic.

A red glow retreats, a headlight approaches by margins the size of apertures.
The gulf remains unbridged. We wait and glare at people in other cars.

Pretend you are a Prairie locomotive. Blow your whistle, and plow through
the rest of the shoppers who have time to stare unironically back at us.

Quit singing along with the radio. I’m losing my commerce buzz. I didn’t want
to be you for so long. It’s hard to stop once you engage in merciless gazing.