Anyone else remember those mother's/father's day sales?
I used to buy my mom these plants all the time but they would never grow
But those sales were such a rip off usually
At least some things there were, like those sports trading cards on a plaque

Let's put a shiny card on a shiny piece of wood
with the sports player's name not even engraved
but printed on a shiny placard to trick little kids
into thinking it's something valuable that their parents might want
"Oh this is gonna be big money someday, Dad'll love it!!!"

I know what they're thinking
"It's their parents money anyway"
like that makes it okay to rip off elementary school children

But isn't that just the American way
to take advantage of the younger generation?

I can just picture the guy, empty sports card packages and boxes
littering the floor, sitting there opening up more packs,
carefully sliding each of the cards into their protective sleeves
and gluing them each to a piece of wood as a printer makes noises
in the next room, humming to himself and thinking

"Yeah it's fine to trick those unsuspecting, uneducated youngsters,
they're less knowledgeable so they deserve to be less fortunate
and since its easier to rip em off it's ok to go ahead
and fuck em over, regardless of whether they're rich or poor
those little suckers deserve to be taken for all they have,
so long as I get mine,"

Makes me a little sick to think about

Robert Frost is an itinerant musician currently passing through Maryland. He documents his days on social media. Robert Frost, a collection of poems in collaboration with Stacy Skolnik, is out with Book Works (UK) this June.

Stacy Skolnik is the author of the novel The Ginny Suite (2024) and the digital poetry collection mrsblueeyes123.com (2019). She is a co-founder and director of Montez Press Radio, the Lower East Side-based broadcast and performance platform. Robert Frost, a collection of poems in collaboration with Robert Frost, is out with Book Works (UK) this June.