99poems/shopctr

They’ve leveled our
first shopping center,
its sales had slumped
to $30 million.
In its place another,
just like all the others
along the freeways –
the predictable blocks of color.
This great homogenization
our lives have come to –
and not just now.

Thirty years ago I saw it –
franchises making our
lives all the same.
Love of the new,
there is a name for it
I forget what, but for it
we let go of our
neighborhoods,
the houses where
our grandmothers
lived.

1/20/99