The Tea Shop Has Closed

everywhere around the placemat
a great scourge is unfolding
the tea shops are all closing
this is unquestionably a postmalthusian snafu

where has the tea lady gone?
in the march of our great success and profit
was the tea lady left behind?
she has been eaten by the great unquenchable appetite

everywhere there is a running scrambling
upward scrambling teaspoon piping hot
up the slippery greasy heaving teapot
of our great inviolable economy

that old shrewd mannequin, Wisdom
a crumbling bisqui in its hand
absentmindedly sipping tea
nodding, thinking unfashionable nothings