Colossus
WOMEN: Happy are we, the women
in capris who sail
into your parking lot, who swarm
through your automatic doors
into this bright, clean box.
You are our safe harbor
with soft pretzels.
You are our brazen giant
astride from land to land.
You are our mother of exiles.
You are a great comfort to us,
Target. We are soothed
by your massive inventory,
knowing we can get what we need
between eight and eleven every day.
We peruse your manifold objects,
cheap and well designed,
nearly every one of them good.
We tie our necks
with these eight-dollar scarves.
Your dollar bins convince us:
there is no poverty.
Your highways are wide,
open, accommodating
these big red carts,
each with one fucked-up wheel.
Our immigrant grandmothers, sailing
from Cork, Bremerhaven, Liverpool,
Palermo, leaning hard on the rail,
had but one beacon of hope
while we have thousands
crossing shore from shore.
WOMAN 1: They couldn’t have dreamt
of such riches for us:
chocolate fountains
in aisle seventeen,
tonics to cure cholera,
syphilis, gout, melancholy.
WOMEN: We can buy dresses
for less than an hour’s wages.
We can sleep
on beds filled with air.
We can drink wine
poured from shiny paper boxes
into cups we use once
then throw away.
WOMAN 2: I know the spirit of god
is the sister of my own
and we are one yearning,
obedient mass,
arms laden with tampons,
children’s Tylenol,
three-ring binders, considering
the dog toys on a Thursday night
when the manager shouts his yawp
into the P.A., calling us all
to a clerk and a numbered register
where, clutching our goods, we wait.
WALT WHITMAN: What has become
of the women and children?
What has become
of the young and old men?
ALL: We’re right here in Target,
singing what belongs
to each of us and no one else.
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