National Croissant Day at Starbucks coffee counter
doesn’t mean a free roll for every shopper,
if only to commemorate a special event,
people place orders with a drizzle of chocolate syrup.
Above the company logo, a girl in wavy ringlets,
an understudy for Lady Liberty on New York City’s
42nd Street, her image printed on mugs, t-shirts,
does what she does naturally,
unzips her tail, in each hand holds
a gesture of hospitality, openness, a mermaid
from a public house installed in a Safeway Supermarket
located next to the Wi-Fi area where the Food Network
plays on an overhead screen. Snowbirds and contractors confer.
Parents park kids on chairs to play videos,
push their carts up the aisle. Bobby Flay barbecues,
I dip into my own chicken noodle,
an out-of-towner who reads Tucson brochures,
Hohokum and Apache gone to shopping centers,
subdivisions, dealerships carved from adobe homes and saguaro
blossoms into a strange red fruit.
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Interesting and provocative poem. As we’re one of Lenore’s publishers and also involved with the evolving drama of Tucson (see our book by Logan Phillips, Sonoran Strange) this rings bells with us. The complexity, contradictions, and living history of a place this much a part of hope and heartbreak is bound to appeal, and the poem works very well.
Thanks, John! West End publishes amazing books.
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