the end is near

clearly the store, the franchise,
the business had to go under.
how could it survive.
but it was where your mother
took you to buy
the yellow shirt for easter.
brown shoes.
your father went there
for tires and tools, topsoil,
lawnmowers and rakes.
another hammer to hang beside
the ones he never used.
but these were new,
different in some way,
marked down, improved.
a couch was bought there,
plaid like a lumberjack's
shirt. a coffee table
that Martha Washington
would have loved to put
her boots upon.
but here you are, decades later,
standing in line to return
a microwave oven that never
once worked. never blinked
never offered up a cough
of radiant heat. you carried
it from the store
to your kitchen and back again.
all within an hours time,
and as the clerk,
with his plain, unlived face,
politely asks you if you
wanted to have it repaired,
not exchanged, you understood
that yes. the business
had to end.