The drum patterns, in time with checkout tills,
blended with sounds, regular and functional,
buzz out of wall fittings across controlled air
carrying clean rubbery factory scents,
gridded, polished and identical if not for
subtle neat machine tweaks of colour
that one by one, clusters with limp approach,
extend hands at their most worshipful towards,
gently caressing the soft warm paddings,
slowly running laces through caring fingers
in rare gazes of concentration and ore
before back outside, the traffic of attention
cracks apart soft voices with bellows.
An alien surrounded by shopping bags
struggles aboard the bus on which they sit,
transfixed at their plastic clenching palms,
boastfully keying purchase history to the world.