*****

Recorded Reading (1:51): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jmdhvi6qhlcledhonnj0j/Love-in-Store.mp3?rlkey=kvqx5z270jdmcwct491vs9n4h&dl=0

*****

Love in Store

You find comfort, buying things
You are not alone
It’s for our hearts’ deprivation
That we seek thus to atone

We’d not store up so much treasure,
Treasure things so much,
If there were available
Simple human touch

Our deepest urge is really not
To hoarding or to usury —
Our deepest urge is just to know
We of good service be,

Our labors seeing good result,
Our sacrifices bring to be
Prosperity for family
And for community

But find selves boxed instead into
A job we love to hate
Subject to criticism
Pressure early, pressure late

Dodging from the bullets
Social expectation of,
Doing without peace of mind
Doing without love

Doing without sunshine
All of every day
Not once in each we take the chance
To let loose and really play

Pushing away constantly
Low grades of despair and
Dread self-abnegation —
Forgot to run an errand

Got to go that party to
Where everyone we know
Will ensure beyond habit’ual
Limits we will never grow

Then back home to family
Finds us risible —
Is it any wonder
Most of us are mis’rable?

Is it any wonder
We try to find in every store
What’s lacking in the world around?
— Can’t take lovelessness any more

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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