Shopping Centre in January

Carried through the food court

the four year old wraps his arms around my neck

whispers sweetly in my ear:

‘Everyone will die. Everyone will die.’

This collective fate has brought

us here, to the shopping centre

sheltering from summer’s heat.

My husband pushes the trolley.

He wears a panama hat with the price tag, seven dollars,

hanging over his forehead.

Two women walk past. ‘Nice hat,’

one of them says.

‘It’s totally working for you.’

Everyone will die.

Everyone will die.

Astonishing, not that we die,

but that we live at all

knowing we will die.

We buy everything we need

to last till evening:

movie tickets, fruit from the supermarket.

And we pay the tithe: 

Earrings in the shape of pineapples - two dollars.

Seven Moroccan patterned bowls - two fifty each.

The sales girl wraps each of them in paper,

continuing a conversation

with her young male boss:

Sometimes it's over.

Sometimes you have to draw the line.

Everyone will die.

Outside

the temperature rises.

The cool change will come.