landscape in a dick's sporting goods

I.

Landscape swinging baseball bats without looking around. Landscape of tabloids and candy wrappers at the register temptation. Landscape in McDonald’s ball pit that smells like diaper in the sun. Landscape in Footlocker posing with the shoehorn. Landscape of gumball and trinket dispensers lined up hungry as parking meters. Landscape striding the freeway median looking back over your shoulder Bigfoot posture. Landscape with landscapers manicuring the lawn on zero-turn mowers. Landscape with asphalt, yellow lines, handicap signs, and forty-foot lights. Landscape under the gas station overhang lit from below at nighttime. Landscape in the woods at the edge of the backyard in earshot from your mother. Landscape looking at yourself in the mirror brushing your teeth with the faucet on. Landscape in the produce aisle. Landscape in the dry-goods aisle. Landscape in the frozen section. Landscape at the abandoned Radio Shack in Circuit City. Landscape buying liquor from a friend's older brother in the H-Mart parking lot. Landscape buying pot from a friend's older brother in the K-Mart parking lot. Landscape leaning back in every office chair at the Best Buy. Landscape where you scratch and sniff the polyurethane. Landscape where you lift up the bottom shelf, crawl inside, and wait until close.

II.

After closing time I come out from under the shelf and get to work. They moved the mannequins back, as usual, so I start there. Donatello hates to be separated from Wayne. I fix them up near the fishing gear and camper stove. Their tent sits on a plot of turf, 1 Paradise Square in the linoleum flats. I like them to lean in, as if they were engaged in conversation. During the day no one can hear anyone else over the cries of Do you have this in a 12? and I'm sorry ma'am that coupon won't scan. The manager doesn't care about Wayne and Donatello, or Rupert and Graziella, or the polycule that hangs out by the inflatable tubes, cosplaying a family of four. I think the helium gets in their heads. Mannequins can't afford insurance. It's time to make my rounds. I drag the canister like a plague doctor up and down the aisles, calling on the denizens at Dick's. Their medicine is leather scent. As smoke uncurls from the swinging censer, let us spill and waft in time.

Michael Baruch is from Ellicott City, Maryland and has probably lived in New York long enough to be a New Yorker too. He is a Virgo Sun, Virgo Rising, and Virgo Mercury and he does his best. Over the past decade he has been a career counselor, an investment banker, a financial reporter, a bookseller, a cold caller, a haiku typewriter, a yoga instructor, and an influencer's assistant. His first chapbook ‘Bond’ (2026) is forthcoming from Bruiser and his work has appeared in Bruiser mag, Spoils: a MilkHouse reader, ritual dagger, talking about strawberries all the time, and elsewhere.