The Phenomenology of Shopping
–Alison Hawthorne Deming
From Genius Loci
Fax it to me he said and
I said I will though it meant
since I was living in a cabin
on the coast driving to town and
chatting with the innkeeper
for an hour because that is
the neighborly rhythm
of a small town and since
I had already disrupted
the quiet of my day I drove on
to the city to check out
the outlets and buy pasta
and wine–a fine Valpolicella
so cheap I bought three–
and listened on the long drive
home to the radio telling me
how many pounds of dump space
I would save each year
if I used less stuff–comics
for Christmas wrap, mixing
frozen juice in a pitcher
instead of buying it in glass–
and I scanned the bags beside me
that had grown like spores
in the petri dish of my car and
felt as if I’d no hand in their
multiplying and asked myself
in disgust, “Who’s driving this car?”
