A glad-handing bigwig cut the ribbon, posed for the press.
It was built and they came: marveling, moneyed,
roseate-faced in approach to the generalist anchors,
big-box stores, graced by the sincerity of the mall lighting,
fake foliage and botanicals. A doo-wop quartet harmonized
before the indoor fountain which made water burst in bridal
whites, fall in chandeliers. There was demand, occupancy,
suscitated crowds, shopping was dogma, leisure was lore.
Centrifuge for our adolescence, a hangout nave, weekend
evenings of gutwrench flirtations, hormonal hubbub,
post-shift lazing on hoods in the car lot, station hopping
on stereos during drawn-out commercial interludes.
Animatronic lions and moose offered kids cuddles
in the galleria, inflatable reindeer swayed on their turn.
When you think back, we were always waving at someone
or something, there was purpose in purchase, comity
in recreation. Laughter seemed to rebound off the walls.
We didn’t yet know that progress was a comfortable flaw.

*

Shops shamed behind a tifo of broadsheets, (old outrages,
forgotten tattle), scuff marks, security grilles, eviction notices
slapped on the poky units, stucco peeling as if a Band-Aid
frayed on the zeitgeist’s face. Reports of bobcats chancing
the cinema aisles, jackrabbits in the food court, the illuminated
directories and way-finding signs kaput, somber as lecterns
in midwinter churches. All that swank and show, the imitation
of riches, gone, not even the fountain can spare a few cents
in its dried-up basin, its limescaled font – all wishes spent.
The things we bought deprived us of time and living space.

We changed, decamped to home, bowled alone, and now
the lanes are all gutters, the automated pinsetters as stalled
as the elevators, between levels like unbudging thermometer
mercury. The lie is out, the boast popped. We read eulogy
for society in a dead mall. A zenith is only so in retrospect;
there comes a point laughter soaks into walls and doesn’t replay.
We got too wise to merchandise, switched those artful tricks
onto ourselves – same contestable claims, same clone of voice.

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Image: “A Hundred Million Bottles Looking for a Home, Colonie Center” by Daniel Nester