Saturday afternoon drive to the superstore,
huge corrugated barn, fat full of furniture.
Look for a parking space. Circle around and round
Kids grizzle in the back. Circle around and round.

Pull in to narrow space. Kids grizzle out of car.
Home-perfect families smile down from postered walls.
Enter the mazy barn, windowless, wonderful.
Leave kids in funplay room. “Go watch a video!”

Outside the sunflowers blaze across rolling fields.
Streams gurgle over rock, stickleback under stone.
Larks sing their endless song, trees fret and tremble leaf.
Bees harvest nectar to carry back to the hive.

Inside lie shoppingbags, piled high for gathering.
Pick up a second one. “Never know what we’ll find.”
Flatpack and ready-made, chipboard and plastic wood,
Lampshades and kitchenware, carpets and bathroom bits.

Wander the ideal aisles, home-perfect, fashion-full.
Gaze at the living room, plump cushions, booky shelves.
Slide out a cupboard drawer, sit in a comfychair.
“Oh such a comfychair. Wouldn’t it go so well!”

Outside the clouds swell, grow heavy with storm and rain.
Toadstools push silent through rotting logs, soft and brown.
Cows make their rural smells, birds carry strange disease.
Smokestacks belch chemicals. Forests fall to the saw.

Inside soft music fills all the conditioned air.
Bins, racks and shelves spill profusion of lovely things.
Gather some happiness into your shoppingbag.
Queue for the checkout desk.

June 2008