writing in a dead mall

i had this notion to bring my laptop & set up shop in the empty food court [no vendors, a few tables left over] at the country club plaza / this was a few years ago / after the last restaurant packed up & the sports store shuttered its doors / there was / is / a watch repair shop that i'd frequent / the country club plaza was a smaller mall but it did very well when i was young / but the retail landscape is changing / so is the shrinking middle class / malls have been slowly dying / now the pandemic really kicked them in the ass / i don't know how or what will survive this mad age / no one does / but i never did set up shop at the empty food court at country club plaza / i don't know what i'd accomplish anyway / people watching was a dead end / no free wifi either / perhaps i'd capture in words the fading worlds that i grew up in / the crowds / the blaring PA / the traffic / the many stores / even the bookstore where i discovered the poems of nyc jim carroll / whose book was spine to spine with jonathan livingston seagull by richard bach / & the verse of anne morrow lindbergh / i couldn't know the future anway / i barely remember yesterday / but if i could continue on in this mess with you / holding your hand / i think i might take up smoking / a pipe / ask for my slippers at the end of a hard day at work / as you work on the equations to solve cold fusion / & the world outside becomes something that we could never have imagined