Monday, June 20, 2011

empty ski place





candy for lunch (empty ski place near Armstrong, B.C.)



       thirty years old
              running a shop
          that sells nothing:
    printed with the name of this place,
                nowhere,
               somewhere.
        it’s empty: out of season ski strip.
     fur hats and beaver t-shirts
             compete jostling for no-one
       we’ve gone in,
                       it was open
             why we came up here
                       i don’t know
               i don’t ski
                  there’s no snow right now anyway
        she’s come out from behind the counter
 pale, glitter, alone
             her boyfriend is in town
     there’s no business
                i want to go
      but the older relation
              stays, chatting
          of nothing
             looking at well-priced
              nothing
    and this nothing-child
           this poor lost beast
whose mother never even taught it
                        what to eat
          offers us,
                   tentative
                         (normally there is no need
        when there are more
                                customer people
                                        they just talk , you know?)
         of her empty time
                  and of her food:
            a small plastic bag
                 with some coloured bits of candy in it:
         her lunch, she says
                   desperatepaleglitter
          such feelings as tear at my chest
                            and eyes
                  i cannot say
          we have lost all our children
                     alone, they play
          (adult), & all forlorn.



2009 Peter Greene.

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