Everyone’s Gone to the Mall!

By Marne Kilates

Everyone’s gone to the mall.
Everyone’s going to the shopping mall
Everybody’s going to buy something at the shopping mall
Everyone’s brought everyone to buy something at the mall
𝘈𝘵𝘦 and 𝘒𝘶𝘺𝘢! Tito and Tita, Mother and Grandma,
The dog and the cat, if allowed, 𝘣𝘶𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺𝘢!
Droves of them, hand-in-hand, eyes to the glittering shrine,
Are going to the mall: Wallets loaded, riding direct
From the airport, on the Skyway, on NLEX or SLEX,
To the shopping mall―they’re going to buy everyone
Something at the mall, if they haven’t already from the mall
they left
In the States, in Saudi or Dubai, or Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.
Everybody works so hard so they could buy something at the
mall.
Make it Christmas or fiesta or All Souls’ or anyone’s
Birthday, everyone goes to the shopping mall.
Everyone looks like everybody going to the shopping mall―
Slight, medium-build, starving, obese―
Shopping carts groaning heavy, their savings and salaries
Ready to be squandered, wasted at the shopping mall,
Fed to the happy garrulous ringing of the cashier at the shopping mall
Everybody’s smiling going to the shopping mall:
Grinning ear-to-ear, hand-in-hand, eyes to the glittering shrine…
Everyone looks like everybody going to the shopping mall
The whole archipelago is going to the shopping mall
Across bay and gulf and ditch and turf…
Let us, you and me, make our way to the shopping mall
Rich and loaded, steps springing to the shopping mall
To the shopping mall! To the shopping mall! To the shopping mall!

14 December 2023