Jeffery Berg
MALL 1990
In my Youth Gone Wild T-shirt,
I roam the mall with my pack of girls--
our acid wash jeans tight, pulled up high.
In my pockets: Salem’s, a lifted cassette of Def Leppard.
I don’t realize I’m in my prime.
My frosted bangs teased into the shape of a claw--
a style I would later dub “the mall ball.”
I don’t see any boys to flirt with.
I stare down at the tiles—white and teal:
a dizzying pattern beneath my white Reeboks--
soles scrawled in Sharpie with names
of friends I would someday forget.
I never want to be the mom
pushing the stroller past Pretzel Logic,
cigarette between fingers—smokestream
across her baby’s pink face.
Years later, when I come back to town
for my father’s triple bypass,
I will walk around the mall sleekly
clad in black, aimless in the muzackless quiet.
Gone will be the record, book stores,
gone will be the crowds, sand filled ashtrays
full of lipstick-stained cigarettes. The floor
slate gray, I look down, pretending not to see
one of the girls from the pack with her wedding ring,
her blond son in army fatigues.
I will be relieved when she passes me.
Not saying anything. I will decide
this will be my last walk
past a generation of old ladies
cross-legged around the fountain,
with their varicose veins,
steaming McDonald’s coffees,
and cold glares. In this year,
I will be in debt, twice-divorced,
unusually morose. For now,
I don’t have much to worry about
except flunking out, being caught
with pot in my father’s toolshed.
I stop the pack to check my hair
with my heart-shaped mirror
and I close it in a snap.
MALL 1990
In my Youth Gone Wild T-shirt,
I roam the mall with my pack of girls--
our acid wash jeans tight, pulled up high.
In my pockets: Salem’s, a lifted cassette of Def Leppard.
I don’t realize I’m in my prime.
My frosted bangs teased into the shape of a claw--
a style I would later dub “the mall ball.”
I don’t see any boys to flirt with.
I stare down at the tiles—white and teal:
a dizzying pattern beneath my white Reeboks--
soles scrawled in Sharpie with names
of friends I would someday forget.
I never want to be the mom
pushing the stroller past Pretzel Logic,
cigarette between fingers—smokestream
across her baby’s pink face.
Years later, when I come back to town
for my father’s triple bypass,
I will walk around the mall sleekly
clad in black, aimless in the muzackless quiet.
Gone will be the record, book stores,
gone will be the crowds, sand filled ashtrays
full of lipstick-stained cigarettes. The floor
slate gray, I look down, pretending not to see
one of the girls from the pack with her wedding ring,
her blond son in army fatigues.
I will be relieved when she passes me.
Not saying anything. I will decide
this will be my last walk
past a generation of old ladies
cross-legged around the fountain,
with their varicose veins,
steaming McDonald’s coffees,
and cold glares. In this year,
I will be in debt, twice-divorced,
unusually morose. For now,
I don’t have much to worry about
except flunking out, being caught
with pot in my father’s toolshed.
I stop the pack to check my hair
with my heart-shaped mirror
and I close it in a snap.
DREAMLAND SHORES
Say I’m the blonde in a red blouse
buttoned below cleavage,
bellbottoms with stars
stitched on the ass.
You are dirt-streaked, rugged
with a Donny Osmond hair helmet.
I see the parquet floor
of my ex-lover’s condominium
in your shirt pattern.
I left him a week ago. Cashed in
the fur coat, all the other knickknacks
and decided to invest
in something for myself.
Yesterday afternoon, on a land ferry
navigated by Marilyn--
with her bullhorn, parachute pants
and knee-high toffee leather boots--
we looked at spaces of land, signs marked
“Future tennis court,” “Future swimming pool,”
in beach grass: the future
spot for Dreamland Shores: A place
where people can begin to live.
Where pines would be cut, sand unearthed
for a marina, bowling alley, 18-hole golf course,
beautiful aluminum condominiums
where you and I could’ve lived. Unfortunately,
Dreamland Shores was besieged
by inexplicable swarms of giant ants.
Now, we are in a nearby town
in the sheriff’s car. Thank God
we escaped the ants, after running
through thick Florida forests and swamps.
When we pass the sugar refinery--
triangle of steel against blue sky,
situated on sprawling, wind-blown cane--
I remember what the old woman,
Phoebe, told me—the one
who called the sheriff for us,
who lived in a shack in the woods
with her stern, overalled, bucktoothed husband.
Her movements were stiff,
she put her hand to my ear,
moved her lips close and whispered:
Whatever you do,
don’t let them take you
to the sugar refinery.
I am not the blonde in the red blouse
and you are not the hero of this film
who will crash
a highly flammable semi
into the steel triangle sugar refinery
in a zombie town mentally-controlled
by the giant queen ant who releases
a smoky fog of pheromones
to each and every townie in a glass room.
We are watching this movie
on my couch
in my apartment drunk
on Jim Beam shots swilled
every time a character uttered
Dreamland Shores.
I’m not wearing a red blouse or bellbottoms
but a black T-shirt and boxer shorts.
I want your hand on my cock
but your hand remains around my shoulder.
Instead of polyester shirt of parquet floors,
you wear one of the white tank tops
you are famous in town for--
I imagine a closet full of them:
so bleached-white like the milky nuclear waste
leaking from dented barrels
washed-up on Dreamland Shores,
little ants swimming in it.
It’s terrible, this film, fixed
in ill-tinted memories. Ted Stole,
the Jehovah’s Witness across the street
who claimed to catch things
on fire with his eyes. Removed rocks
and drowned fire ant colonies
in gasoline. How their bodies twitched
in pungent fuel. Unearthing Mark Myers’
family praying around Hamburger Helper
and bowls of iceberg lettuce.
I itched an ant from my sock,
it stung me quick and I yelped Goddammit
to the great disdain of Mark’s father
who glared at me
for the rest of that night.
Ants crawled in Mark’s sister’s dollhouse:
a pink mansion nestled in cream carpeting.
With glee, I took a nude Barbie,
smacked them with her head
until their bodies shriveled
in tiny flicks. On some days,
shirtless in acid wash jeans,
I ran towards the pine trees
till I was out of view
from the back of our house and went to the tree
where I buried my sister’s red blouse
under pine needles. Shook the dried locust carcasses
from it, a few black ants,
and buttoned it breathlessly
right below my chest.
I think, tonight, you have pheromones.
It has a scent—minty alcohol gel
that keeps your hair stiff and spiky.
Tomorrow morning, I will want you
to leave my apartment. Miles away
from a backyard, a forest, leisure suits, Dreamland Shores,
the Everglades, cane plantations carved
from the hands of slaves. In bodies
miles away from Phoebe
and her weary, bucktoothed husband.
I will catch a glimpse of tousled hair,
white tank top. It decays,
it rots. I lick your armpits, your Adam’s apple.
Finally, praise God, your hand moves
slow down my chest. I watch
giant ants burning in the sugar dunes.
Say I’m the blonde in a red blouse
buttoned below cleavage,
bellbottoms with stars
stitched on the ass.
You are dirt-streaked, rugged
with a Donny Osmond hair helmet.
I see the parquet floor
of my ex-lover’s condominium
in your shirt pattern.
I left him a week ago. Cashed in
the fur coat, all the other knickknacks
and decided to invest
in something for myself.
Yesterday afternoon, on a land ferry
navigated by Marilyn--
with her bullhorn, parachute pants
and knee-high toffee leather boots--
we looked at spaces of land, signs marked
“Future tennis court,” “Future swimming pool,”
in beach grass: the future
spot for Dreamland Shores: A place
where people can begin to live.
Where pines would be cut, sand unearthed
for a marina, bowling alley, 18-hole golf course,
beautiful aluminum condominiums
where you and I could’ve lived. Unfortunately,
Dreamland Shores was besieged
by inexplicable swarms of giant ants.
Now, we are in a nearby town
in the sheriff’s car. Thank God
we escaped the ants, after running
through thick Florida forests and swamps.
When we pass the sugar refinery--
triangle of steel against blue sky,
situated on sprawling, wind-blown cane--
I remember what the old woman,
Phoebe, told me—the one
who called the sheriff for us,
who lived in a shack in the woods
with her stern, overalled, bucktoothed husband.
Her movements were stiff,
she put her hand to my ear,
moved her lips close and whispered:
Whatever you do,
don’t let them take you
to the sugar refinery.
I am not the blonde in the red blouse
and you are not the hero of this film
who will crash
a highly flammable semi
into the steel triangle sugar refinery
in a zombie town mentally-controlled
by the giant queen ant who releases
a smoky fog of pheromones
to each and every townie in a glass room.
We are watching this movie
on my couch
in my apartment drunk
on Jim Beam shots swilled
every time a character uttered
Dreamland Shores.
I’m not wearing a red blouse or bellbottoms
but a black T-shirt and boxer shorts.
I want your hand on my cock
but your hand remains around my shoulder.
Instead of polyester shirt of parquet floors,
you wear one of the white tank tops
you are famous in town for--
I imagine a closet full of them:
so bleached-white like the milky nuclear waste
leaking from dented barrels
washed-up on Dreamland Shores,
little ants swimming in it.
It’s terrible, this film, fixed
in ill-tinted memories. Ted Stole,
the Jehovah’s Witness across the street
who claimed to catch things
on fire with his eyes. Removed rocks
and drowned fire ant colonies
in gasoline. How their bodies twitched
in pungent fuel. Unearthing Mark Myers’
family praying around Hamburger Helper
and bowls of iceberg lettuce.
I itched an ant from my sock,
it stung me quick and I yelped Goddammit
to the great disdain of Mark’s father
who glared at me
for the rest of that night.
Ants crawled in Mark’s sister’s dollhouse:
a pink mansion nestled in cream carpeting.
With glee, I took a nude Barbie,
smacked them with her head
until their bodies shriveled
in tiny flicks. On some days,
shirtless in acid wash jeans,
I ran towards the pine trees
till I was out of view
from the back of our house and went to the tree
where I buried my sister’s red blouse
under pine needles. Shook the dried locust carcasses
from it, a few black ants,
and buttoned it breathlessly
right below my chest.
I think, tonight, you have pheromones.
It has a scent—minty alcohol gel
that keeps your hair stiff and spiky.
Tomorrow morning, I will want you
to leave my apartment. Miles away
from a backyard, a forest, leisure suits, Dreamland Shores,
the Everglades, cane plantations carved
from the hands of slaves. In bodies
miles away from Phoebe
and her weary, bucktoothed husband.
I will catch a glimpse of tousled hair,
white tank top. It decays,
it rots. I lick your armpits, your Adam’s apple.
Finally, praise God, your hand moves
slow down my chest. I watch
giant ants burning in the sugar dunes.
Jeffery Berg's poems have recently appeared in Assaracus, The Curator, and Court Green. He lives in New York and blogs about popular culture and various obsessions at jdbrecords.
