Gursky’s 99 Cent

        This sordid plenty, Updike wrote, but look:
the ceiling floats ensilvered, reds and yellows flirt,
the packets gleam, the jack-o-lanterns glare.
No lulling dark, no idle corners here.

Nothing could be more itself, candid and opaque.
The shoppers loiter, sidelined, muzzy wraiths,
and posters range across like sentries:
99c                          99c                          99c

presiding over the skein of shopping trolleys,
the paper towels, the juicy fruits, the mints;
the smothered cries of admen, some long dead,
chuckles, hearts, tangoes, smuckers, grapehead;

the Latin riffs and proverbs half-deployed:
rolo, nutrageous, zagnut, almond joy.