Strip Mall by Robert Demaree

Strip Mall
by
Robert Demaree

When strip malls are declared

An endangered architectural resource,

The experts will come here,

To Paul's Plaza, aside Route 6,

In a small city, once a textile town,

In Piedmont Carolina.

My wife is at Good Hair Day.

I wait in the car

On a morning when the Dow is down,

Conducting a survey:

Several customers for Tahitian Tan,

None for the Scientific Skin Care Center.

One slot vacant, ripe for a tax preparer.

Lots of cars, mostly older,

At the Internet Sweepstakes (it is 2011);

Sangre de Cristo Southwest Cuisine

Coming soon where the sushi bar

Had been.

National Gaming Software Technologies.

Two nails salons and a laundromat,

Cell phone repair, toner refill.

Behind each tinted glass door,

A dream of sorts,

A need, an opportunity

Someone thought they saw.

This poem first appeared in the Faircloth Review (February 2012).
Used here with the author's permission.

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems and the winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award. A retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, he has had over 600 poems published or accepted by 130 publications and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. To learn more about Robert, visit www.demareepoetry.blogspot.

rhonasheridan:
To a 'Brit' - this is the perfect poem about a distant American town. Am I right? I loved it.
Posted 03/18/2014 11:42 AM

paradea:
I agree with Phebe! Well done.
Posted 03/18/2014 10:55 AM

phebe.davidson@gmail.com:
Excellent! Beautifully rendered.
Posted 03/18/2014 06:37 AM

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