Day: August 14, 2013

She’s Leaving and Won’t Be BackShe’s Leaving and Won’t Be Back

The old woman of the shoreline
sits in her wheelchair in the sand.
I am leaving soon, she says.
I am leaving in two or three days.
I’ll not be back.

We’re having a party, she tells the young man of her dreams.
Everyone will be there, you must be there.

I can’t come, he says.  He kneels in the sand at her feet,
touches her leg, wonders if she can feel his touch.
I have a previous engagement, he says.

Her eyes are blue, though it’s said by some they once were brown.
She takes his hand.  He whispers to her.

On sale now! Two for the price of five!On sale now! Two for the price of five!

“The gradual post-war transformation of this country into an outright plutocracy is a development that few have failed to notice, and that has no champions other than the few who benefit directly from it. To sit and watch those high insiders always cash out with impunity is pretty galling to the citizens of a democracy, however much they think they’ve gotten used to it. And to the national multitude of window-shoppers, whether at the mall or watching their TVs, the full-time advertising is another, complementary provocation.” — Mark Crispin Miller, “Hard Sell”