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Relentless First Buyers

You repackage yourself in a desperate attempt
to overnight to Atlanta -
Home of the Braves
and Coca-Cola
and wellspring of relentless buyers
who line up each morning
with characteristic aplomb
for first dibs and coffee
having watched public television
much of the previous evening.
SUVs occupy your inner self -
a self patterned after others
luring drivers into the castle's insidious moat
dumbstruck with free passes to the furniture expo.
The jetty you long admired will soon be erased
the drawbridge raised without remorse
as you shun the mundanity of musical chairs
for the frenzied insistence of the Tango.
Before long, that scene too will change
and you will be off again
on yet another flight of flimsy
to relearn foreign alphabets
and collect phrases disproving the obvious
remembering at the last moment
to turn off the gas burners on the pale stoves
in the sad, cramped kitchens of your memory.