poetics in a dead mall

knowing this would happen i took my phone my notebook & a pen

to the Sunrise Mall 

found a table at the food court & took a seat among the scores

of seats all around me

knowing i wanted a poetry of end-of-times where better than

a dead mall

i wanted it i wanted it so badly a quiet place where i would observe

life around me 

without being observed & i knew it would happen when i got here

at this dead mall

but no one is never not seen everyone from elderly mall walkers

getting in their 10000 steps

to the odd teen seeking who the fuck knows saw me

sitting alone in an empty 

food court taking notes for it is poetry i seek while my mall-mates

search for somethings i can't name

i was not invisible but was on display like everyone who walked

past me

the hungry the desperate the lonely the who-the-hell-knows why 

they do the things they do

but it was a poet they saw jotting down lines & images 

making a poem out of this dead mall