HERE COMES SOME BEAUTY ❋ Neil Surkan

Rumbling with unbuttonings
and unsatisfactory fits,
The Eaton Centre quops
like a shell on an ear –
which is not to say “the sea.”
Rather, it’s blood squeezing
in the thousands of shoppers
buying all the things they need
to hide themselves from themselves.
Around a fountain far underground,
three generations stretch pretzels
with their mouths then take a break
to watch the looped water shoot
from a pump in the basin.
The child flicks a penny
through some foam and wishes
no one he knows will ever die.
Turning to smile he slips and grooves
his forehead on the tiles.
Aphrodite vaulted from
some spume, her humid locks
all fierce and wild –
it comes from the heart,
this spreading pool that’s shaking
up the food court, just down the hall
from the make-up store, one floor
below the cellphone shop
where I’m taking pics of my junk
on the new Samsung
hung from a cable lock.