Page 10 - Demo

Within IKEA
Shay King
pristine, pristine,
enclosing kitchens laid out
a scoop, a den, warm walls and too-well-organized cabinets;
dishwasher concealed, stove concealed,
cabinet hid in cabinet, all is cabinets
pay nothing, clean nothing, do nothing
before presiding in this personal space— personal but for the ubiquitous red tags
and the number of other customers
trying to squeeze themselves among IKEA aisles
the customers do not crow with delight
or give the same subtle gasps as you
when they nd a particularly clever desk; instead they murmur, placid, to one another, speaking in languages unknown
the winding wander doesn’t end, and
kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms blur together, and no one home should have this many rooms, and overhead, the metal beams crumble into dust, gray sand, and
all the books on the mahogany bookshelves are the same, and
the creamy aqua mugs render without detail, and there’s a door out
but
it’s more like a door in, to
empty aisles creeping between a blank wall and glass bar, holding
you back from falling into another display, and
the tops of customers’ heads mill about below, custom- ers beyond the wall don’t
know that you’re there,
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