DYING MALLS
By David Allen
Sitting alone again,
Parked on a bench
Watching nothing happening
In a dying Midwest Mall.
Waiting for the cinema to open
While my wife explores a small shop
Conducting a post-Christmas sale;
Toys, candy, cards all 75 percent off.
It’s nearly noon on a weekday
And the tables at the nearby
Fast-food court are empty.
The mall-walkers are absent
The halls are deserted.
I remember a time in my youth when
Malls were shopping meccas.
I was 14 when Walt Whitman Mall
Opened on Long Island, the first
Enclosed shopping center
In New York city’s suburbs.
The halls were teen hangouts
A shopper’s Valhalla.
Everything was for sale for the right price.
No one seemed to care that
The shops downtown were closing.
It got so bad that my favorite haunts
In Huntington Station — the soda shop
Where I sipped the world’s best egg creams;
The stationery store where I paged through
The latest Cracked and Mad magazines;
The Red Top, where my father perched
On a barstool until Mom sent me
To fetch him home for dinner —
Were bulldozed to make way
For commuter parking and
Low-rent apartments.
What will this mall become?
The last time I saw it busy
Was when the old Sears
Opened on the weekend
For flea market booths.
There was also talk of leveling
It all for a new reservoir.
The future will be a world
Where everything, even groceries
And fast-food will be sent to your door,
All available on cell phones and laptops
Used by customers from their couches
As they binge-watch their favorite TV shows.
Back to now.
When my wife returned
We paid senior fares
At the mall’s cinema
To watch the latest “Star Wars”
With four other Baby Boomers
Scattered throughout the theater.
Well, I hope my poem did not have anything to cause this, but the owner of my local mall has announced it will close for good April 1.
Type Dancing 