MARKET DAY
She approaches the farmer’s market bearing a list of three things, firmly held in the fist of her mind, the tomatoes hard cheese peach cobbler, all to be placed into her cloth bag, but bright blossoms at the first table catch her eye, the cornflowers and peonies and sunflowers with their wide open blooming faces yearning towards the sun, while the tofu lady looks hopeful though alone, and the vegetable family next table down attends to their flock of customers, purple eggplants and tangy onions beside Yukon Gold and russet potatoes, she sighs, still far from the objective of those three, the tomatoes hard cheese peach cobbler, as overflowing tables grown emptier of goods flirt and seduce, challenging any effort to follow the neatly folded list in her back pocket, backup to the folds of her mind.
LIKE GARLIC
Like garlic cooked in a dream
Its crackle wafts up without a smell.
My farmgirl grandma had planted purple pansies
Their velvet petals singed with black and yellow
Beside sweet blue impatiens and long spears
Of grass, a garden in a black plastic holding tray.
The white cement balcony overlooking
The strange grey suburb. No
Late spring here. The glass doors are opened
Dayroom strangers shimmer.
They put out her gift here.
I offer a cup of water to the roots
Check for weeds, broken leaves
Places of new growth.
The sun cuts through, warm
On my bare shoulders.
The young aide studies me
Holds me with her colourless eyes.
About my age, purposeful
In a way I am not at 20.
I had wanted to disappear.
She locks me in her pale gaze.
I kept wanting to turn
To look up at the sun. They shielded
My brown eyes, to protect my sight.
Groggy, I comply.
The smell of damp earth rises. Snowed
Buried alive, I hide in plain sight.
FRED FRUMP
Fred Frump sits at his desk.
Assemblage of random papers
Piled neatly in front of him
Gold pen in hand. His office staged
As if an Important Man still works.
He lingers and haunts the mind’s eye
Of his bleach blonde bad bodied son
Power and money sense power and money,
In endless heat-seeking loop coursing
Through word salad responses, yet
Holding up the table. If you can’t convict
You must acquit. That junkyard dog Cerberus
Needs to be unleashed.
Return us to the land of the living.
Elizabeth Marino is a Chicago poet, performer. and educator. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work includes: the full-length hybrid poetry/memoir Asylum (Vagabond, 2020), the chapbooks Debris (Puddin'head Press) and Ceremonies (dancing girl press), and over 20 print anthology contributions.
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