empty ski place

candy for lunch (empty ski place near Armstrong, B.C.)

       thirty years old

              running a shop

          that sells nothing:

    printed with the name of this place,

                nowhere,

               somewhere.

        it’s empty: out of season ski strip.

     fur hats and beaver t-shirts

             compete jostling for no-one

       we’ve gone in,

                       it was open

             why we came up here

                       i don’t know

               i don’t ski

                  there’s no snow right now anyway

        she’s come out from behind the counter

 pale, glitter, alone

             her boyfriend is in town

     there’s no business

                i want to go

      but the older relation

              stays, chatting

          of nothing

             looking at well-priced

              nothing

    and this nothing-child

           this poor lost beast

whose mother never even taught it

                        what to eat

          offers us,

                   tentative

                         (normally there is no need

        when there are more

                                customer people

                                        they just talk , you know?)

         of her empty time

                  and of her food:

            a small plastic bag

                 with some coloured bits of candy in it:

         her lunch, she says

                   desperatepaleglitter

          such feelings as tear at my chest

                            and eyes

                  i cannot say

          we have lost all our children

                     alone, they play

          (adult), & all forlorn.

2009 Peter Greene.