Woolworth's

On the heels of my recent post about memory, I've chosen a poem that makes me nostalgic; I imagine most of us have similar recollections of the five and dime stores of our childhoods. (And I have no pictures on hand of pies or parakeets or multicolored thongs, but perhaps this iconic sign will serve.)

WOOLWORTH'S by Mark Irwin

Everything stands wondrously multicolored

and at attention in the always Christmas air.

What scent lingers unrecognizably

between that popcorn, grilled cheese sandwiches,

malted milk balls, and parakeets? Maybe you came here

in winter to buy your daughter a hamster

and were detained by the bin

of Multicolored Thongs, four pair

for a dollar.Maybe you came here to buy

some envelopes, the light blue par avion ones

with airplanes, but caught yourself, lost,

daydreaming, saying it’s too late over the glassy

diorama of cakes and pies.  Maybe you came here

to buy a lampshade, the fake crimped

kind, and suddenly you remember

your grandmother, dead

twenty years, floating through the old

house like a curtain. Maybe you’re retired,

on Social Security, and came here for the Roast

Turkey Dinner or the Liver and Onions,

or just to stare into a black circle

of coffee and to get warm.  Or maybe

the big church down the street is closed

now during the day, and you’re homeless and poor,

or you’re rich, or it doesn’t matter what you are

with a little loose change jangling in your pocket,

begging to be spent, because you wandered in

and somewhere between the bin of animal crackers

and the little zoo in the back of the store

you lost something, and because you came here

not to forget, but to remember to live.