Some Future People's Sonnets
I
Imagine The Mall, Nostalgia, the pull —
now, imagine it all different, Malls:
there was a time you went to buy handfuls
of shopping bags but now no more because
now this is where we live, where we wake up,
where we make breakfast, where we start days:
The Mall where they raised us, where we grew up,
they told me right here's where they came out gay,
back when they'd shop and not live in malls,
having just traded jelly bracelets, squeezed
between best friends and the corner store walls
thank god that they came out to realize
when they realized it wasn't “what’s New”
but, for us— what did you do when you knew?
II
Does this upset you? What disturbs me is
how every truth seems catastrophic
on outset, coming out with beaches
shrinking and growing Summers demonic.
Yes the dynamic demands more action
that gets change happening from the inside-
out, from the grassroots to the flax-factions
who've been at-it growing healing clear-eyed
nurturing like your good squirrel friends try
always trying to help, to survive, to
gather (acorns) together. Realize
(acorns) that's all I have, kinship and love
and that's okay that can be a salve:
sky gathered with the acorn sun above.
III
It's the future again. The Mall, reclaimed.
From some past. Like that old national mall
we've imagined greater than what they gave
by giving land back, reparations all,
and making it so they didn't have to fear —
coming out to their friends as they had done
some future free for everyone, right here.
Just like creatures have always lived in malls.
They told these stories of squirrels divided,
dark brown and light silver squirrels warring for
the mall, instead of caring — decided.
Though they had not imagined what's in-store.
With the imagined unveiled, we must try.
Because that's what they did for us. Right?
— Adam Powers