What Happens When a Copywriter Dies?

The cashier beeping groceries
out the store stops and frowns
at a tin can she thought had vanished,
she hmms and shrugs then beeps it on.
 
When a copywriter dies, do the bottles
and brands that she put on the airstrip
that is the counter tarry momentarily
in the business of flying out of stores?
 
In the quiet and cold of the night,
while the watchmen yawn, shotguns
on laps, do the shelves inside rattle
a little, for a second at least?
 
When the handsomely-labelled
tumble into plastic bags, do they
do so in slow motion, silently,
preening as if for the camera?
 
When a copywriter breathes that last one,
will the laundry detergent saved
from being shelved by her genius
refuse to froth and foam today?
 
At the year-end sales conference,
will they find an aberration in the charts,
a spike at that moment the copywriter died?
Will brows furrow for a sec at least?
 
The advertisement that wrenched
the drunk out of the wallow,
that made the addict resolve
that he is, henceforth, erstwhile addict?
 
will he remember the convincing
crafted so he may form a fist,
the copy writ to anger the innermost?
to change his clothes and stride?
 
The marketing men whose careers
she saved with her words might remember,
they might pause, nod to themselves,
raise a glass, or two, they might.