Discounts in Valhalla

Red stitching zigzags along the edge
of the beige elastic ribbon wrapped
around my swollen foot 
propped on the wooden bench 
in the middle of the mall.
A row of teeth, a jagged path,
an erratic graph.
I clutch my cappuccino, 
scorching even through the cup holder,
and lean my crutches against the rail
overlooking the lower level of the mall
with its fountains, its palms, its food court.
Robyn is in the store behind me,
returning her new cocktail dress.
I can see her through the glass.
Humanity trickles in through the revolving doors.
Consumer spending has flatlined: the couples, 
out-of-towners, teenage girls bustle about, 
bagless, here to suck the cold air
or, like me, to convalesce.
It's an easy place to get around if you're wounded,
with few obstacles blocking the wide passages.
Escalators glide to every level.
Everything looks bland, nothing to obstruct or distract. 
A peaceful tide of music soothes the crippled soul.
Even these blood-red threads seem to throb less insistently.
The sterile mannequins do nothing to quicken the pulse.
Miles of cotton gauze constrict my senses.
These hallowed halls, with their weekend sales, 
remain the perfect place for 
a failed and fallen warrior at last to rest,
to wrap his throbbing heart 
in a shroud of soothing beige.