ROBYN SCHIFF

 

Dawn of the Dead

 
Everything outside the shopping mall is death 
but the producer failed to obtain corporate sponsorship 
from anywhere I’d care to shop so I try on prom jewelry again 
at Clare’s Accessories while a corpse throbs 
in the parking lot. The escalator delivers 
nothing in the daylight, just reemerges from its mystery loop 
without new footsteps. 
Have you found someone more delicious? You’ve been a zombie 
since even before the opening credits but I haven’t seen you 
outside Macy’s drooling for my flesh. It’s like being 15 in New Jersey. 
The mall is safe and lonely and I haven’t met you yet. 
 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Schiff’s first book of poems, Worth, was published in 2002 as part of the Kuhl House Poets Series, University of Iowa Press. During her summer break from her visiting professorship at Northwestern University in the U.S., she joined her husband, Nick Twemlow, in New Zealand. She is now at work on a long poem about a huia cloning scheme.

 

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