First it was a shoe shop.
The shoemaker so poor,
He slept on the floor
and resoled customer’s shoes
with cardboard.
*
When it was a clothing store
The young owner
decorated her window
with grace and invention,
one spring hanging a sign
“Just Married!”
and posing manikins
as bride and groom
holding pictures
of her own wedding.
Another spring
her sign read:
“It’s a boy!”and she dressed
Her manikins
in blue
surrounding them
with toys.
For Halloween,
She costumed the manikins
with sinister masks.
But in December,
when she dressed them
in Christmas finery,
she neglected to remove
the sinister masks—
which troubled us
as we ate our breakfast
and watched
from the café′across the street.
Later, she hung a sign:
“Divorced. Closing Store .”
She’d stripped the window
and abandoned the manikins
to their nakedness.
Under the stark
neon streetlamp
they glared at us:
Arctic snow.
*
Now the shop
Is run by a man
selling buttons.
He has swiveling reptilian eyes
And dresses formally,
a lengthy metal chain
from a window curtain
as a watch fob
on his polka-dotted vest.
---for Peter Blair
from FORTY-NINE GURANTEED WAYS to ESCAPE DEATH
from FORTY-NINE GURANTEED WAYS to ESCAPE DEATH
Copyright ⓒ2007 by Sandy McIntosh
Venetia's Coffee Shop, Lower Clapton, E5 / Ewan-M
Venetia's Coffee Shop, Lower Clapton, E5 / Ewan-M
