romeo and juliet go shopping

ROMEO AND JULIET GO SHOPPING

Getting out of cul de sacs
where I’m often forced to stop
sometimes makes me think of Sax
Fifth Avenue, and want to shop,
but if there are no nosey parkers
who watch me going on my spree,
I head instead for Neiman Marcus,
where customers can park for free.
If people watch me in the cul
de sac I choose another market,
and head for somewhere cheap and dull
like Macy’s, Bloomingdale or Target,
for when I’ve got the shopping urge
I don’t want anyone to know
My only motive is to splurge,
like Juliet and Romeo
when buying one another drugs,
shared together, going Dutch,
heart-stopping shopping just for hugs
for which they surely paid too much.
Inspired my e-mail correspondence with my Pennsylvanian cosmic twin, Shelley, who responded to my poem “Barack not AmBushed” by opining that she hoped that the Obama would find “some road to quiet, if not peace”. My response to this delusory aspiration was: “Cul de sac, perhaps.” And then came this poem.

© 2009 Gershon Hepner 1/7/09