Civic Duty
for Civic Video Rosalie
Each day’s late fee
is one more day
in business. Walk the aisles
making mantras of titles,
shuffle worn carpet,
thumb static horror
blurbs in Papyrus:
finite options; infinite terror.
Stocked with boxed ways
to avoid going out,
our last local refuge of
streetpress dregs and special
favourite-members’ deals.
We no longer need to flash our card
to revisit films we rented once
or just once more – their covers
like windows or tombstones.
But one day Civic Video
will close and on that day
there will be nothing:
neon-gone – a glowing
museum set piece.
Whatever killed the dinosaurs
is killing Civics. Already paleozoic,
Blockbuster never saw Rosalie
craft an ark of empty video cases.
A little more home
with each hole punched
in that loyalty card
we never end up
cashing in.
Other poems from Zenobia Frost's collection 'Salt and Bone'