Notice To Customers (Poetry)

(Found in a local branch of TK Maxx)

PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ANY ITEMS
THAT YOU DON’T INTEND TO BUY
Instructions so impractical
it makes you want to cry

How can you make your mind up
just by looking at a rack
of dresses packed in tightly
or check china for a crack?

You cannot judge the weight of things
or see the price or make
for that information’s underneath
so how, for pity’s sake

is it possible to know it
when you don’t have x-ray eyes
and the label isn’t visible —
must you guesstimate the size?

Whatever clueless person wrote
that so-annoying sign
might just as well have said ‘Fuck off
and go and shop online!’