Casketts Store

Retro architecture

hip, but forty years

late and musty

crumbling concrete,

square root of antiquity;

monthendrushdawnstheday

shelvesbulging with stuff;

bolts of brightfabric

parotted and exoticked beyond

a dusty bushveld experience,

soaps and sanitaries, cheap clothing

and floridfrocks, loadsofbrownbread,

lanternwicksbythemetre

binspiled with

staplegrains;

mealie-meal and stickygoldensugar,

maltcloudschoking

the humidair

mopani worms, sundried

in a grimmace of potent protein

greycast-iron three-legged pots,

fat-tackie bicycles with

optional mirrors and bells,

44 gallondrumsof

cookingoil and paraffin -

cutting a scalpel-line through

the nostrils

up on all eightyears of tippy-toe

i peer over the expansive

counterplain,

amassedeagerfaces awaiting their turn

acocoaveneeroffaces

only skindeep

patiently a little closer to service

sweatynotes dispensed from bra’s

meagrecoins gently squeezed by

untying the corners of a spent cloth -

so pastoralscene continues

exchanges of warmgreetingsliterally,

shinynewgoods and bloodedcash

andthenheappears:

Mr. nonamebrandvanillaflavour strutsin -

cocoamass melts to subservience,

a sterileservile sundae of apology

for being there, no, for being

shufflingoutofthewayforgreatbrashsuperiority