POETRY BREAK: RETAIL SPACE FOR RENT

By Elaine Equi

Every day emptiness erases

Big franchises

As well as small boutiques:

The place that sold gadgets,

The shop that specialized in hats.

It’s a commercial version

Of the Rapture—leaving behind

A jigsaw puzzle of blank pieces,

Each one an unopened invitation

To anyone with an ounce of creative vision

And the millions needed to back it up.

If this were a movie, aliens would be arriving

To set up their ministry,

But today even the sky seems vacant.

We’re dissolving the past

Faster than we can manufacture the future.

Lots of everything must go.

Not enough coming soon.