I Shoppe at Disneyland with Walt's Daughters

This poem was published in Crack The Spine.

Walt Disney by artist Henry Major. Pencil on paper. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. Image from Smithsonian Open Access.

Each ride spits us into a shop

where we can't spin far without Walt.

He loves his Fantasia flowers.

We giggle, pick Minnie sunglasses,

peer over rims to watch boys

play the crowd with cap guns

smuggled from pirates. Little red dots

pop, smoke rises and rides the wind

to the next Land. We can't decide,

one souvenir or ten? I resolve

to stick with fifty. Walt clicks his tongue.

You are out of control, girls.

He snips our hair in the barbershop,

takes our money. Come again! Come any time!

He puts his cigarette out in a topiary

and I shout, Stop! Thief! But I'm in bud,

and so he shapes me,

plants me where I stand.

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