Photos of America’s Abandoned Malls
by Chad Heltzel

1. Most of all, the stillness: the escalators
2. stopped. Inside the storefront, mirrored
3. columns glint against empty jewelry counters.
4. Outside, a glass pane shattered blue on
5. the floor like rain. The long hall,
6. a track-and-zoom where sun falls through
7. a skylight onto the escalator’s exposed machinery.
8. In the food court, a toppled cart, a stroller.
9. A payphone, hanging from its cord. A wall reads
10. Rest Easy. From the ceiling, acoustic tiles
11. peel like leaves. Another skylight, broken, and water
12. has pooled at the base of a bench below.
13. A planter of ivy has overgrown from brickwork,
14. and the green reaches leaf by leaf across the tiles.