On Saturday
any Saturday
every Saturday

multi-themed pedestrian parades
pour down commercial corridors
celebrating a holiday known as

WEEKEND.

Middle school queens throw
exaggerated waves
from backseat upholstery tops

in imaginary convertibles marking
the current flow route between
Foot Locker and Game Stop.

Marching throngs display
personal banners on
plastic handled brand bags

drawing peer clusters,
human petaled floats,
vying for ribbons

passing devoutly interested
sideline spectators
now feeling a bit empty

without score cards.

Hippos, thin men, package jugglers
stroll along the branching avenues
labeled in chest advertisements

including everything from
Magnetic Health to Jesus.
No mega-city floatilian

compares to the mall regalia
in a midsize hometown
duck-n-spend.

Though it may be
a little short on free candy
it is still sponsored in part

by Macy's.

Interlocked peddler palaces
reign as shopping centers,
though shopping is the least

of the reasons to be here;
not unlike people going to
a hockey match

are not going to watch hockey,
or partakers in Nascar
don't actually go for racing.

Truth is,
we are all hoping
to see a collision,

Haves with Have Nots,
Lovers with Haters,
Colored Hairs with High & Tights

Refined with Undefined
Talkers with Solitaries
Personal Loathing with Itself.

Unanimously, they all come
for the curiosity of encounter
incalculable, anxious, wanted

or unwanted.

In secret,
dreamers hold royal hopes
praying to Aeropostale gods

pleading favor with credit cards
and a bump in popularity
that if so anointed

the purest of this parade's followers
would be next week's
Grand Marshall.