The Old Younkers

 Buildings come and go,
 And of the moments spent
 Inside them
 Locked forever
 In the DNA of plaster and brick,
 We do not give thought
 Until bulldozed walls crumble,
 Weakened by the wrecking ball. 

 The old Younkers,
 In its heyday,
 Tracked the phases in my life.
 As a tomboy
 I cut across the dirt clods
 Of the undeveloped parking lot
 With babysitting money
 A comforting lump in my shoe—
 Before the days of purses
 And responsibilities—
 To buy a mismatched shorts outfit
 Practice in mastering my own finances. 

 Later the real shopping—
 Mother/daughter arguments over spending her money.
 She gravitated to the nautical
 While I pined for the a-line turquoise blue wool
 With the white Mandarin design
 In perfect petite size seven. 

 A grudging friendship grew.
 We’d stop by the clothes section
 Just to hear the ritual rhythms
 Of wire hangars
 Chiming against the racks
 Fabric muffling our conversations.

 My last trip
 To return four of her unworn dresses
 Price tags dangling mutely
 Days after her self-inflicted death—
 A favor to my father
 Whose anger was not as wild as mine—
 Seeing through the tears
 Scenes I’d forgotten over the years.

 And busy with my life
 It was no longer on my route
 But there, nonetheless,
 to enter if I chose.

 Talk of remodeling—
 High-end stores promised,
 The red tape of city planning
 Taking forever.
 And one cold autumn afternoon
 Equally full of promise and sadness
 I was consumed by an unexpected grief,
 As driving by,
 I saw only the flattened refuse
 Of another moving on.

                                         —Katherine M. Searle
                                           5 February 2007

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