Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Sad Chant of a Boutique Store Clerk

Let us shop then, you and I,
Where the clothing is folded neatly near by
By some clerk who finds his job inescapable;
Let us shop, without caring how late we keep,
That hungry clerk who weeps
To go to his pathetic little home
And those seedy bars where he likes to roam:
Keep his kind from me and focused on folding shirts
But don’t pay fair his efforts
Or he will begin to think he is like us…
A terrible thought is it?
Let us shop and make our visit.

In the store the tourists come and go
Griping ‘cause prices are not low.

The snow white shirt that lies upon the shelf with coffee stains,
The snow white shirt that lies on the table covered with stains
Wrinkled where I left it to be folded again,
By some small part-time clerk with fluff for brains,
Who cleaned it once and must now make it clean before leaving,
Or find a new job, perhaps McDonalds,
If he could learn how to use the fryilator,
I’m done, let’s leave him seething.


(my apologies to T. S. Eliot)

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