Weekend

Market day, and sun and air blown clear
with autumn
Better not forget
your cardigan.

And men in ponchos hemmed in braid and fringe
of red and white which strangely match
the music haunting wild and free and joy
from native pipes

It somehow mingles with the scent
and rightly so
heady sweet and full of spice
of hot chai held in little paper cups.

“This music makes me crazy,”
he complains to her,
they pass me and I laugh.
It makes me happy.

Happy like the colours
in the crocheted rugs
tumbled red and blue and gold
and orange like your grandma knits.

“How much?”
Ten dollars each. Well you can have
Two for fifteen.
He smiles, two for twelve.
Too small for my bed, I shrug
and smile.

He smiles as we go.
His voice follows:
“You are both gorgeous.”

Self-aware we dig
through mounds of loveless clothes
and handle ancient things
like playing cards and purses
and awkward brown jugs that are kind of
warm

Because these things you can’t help
but hold.

And happy with the things we have bought
with our eyes
and the little glass rings of red and blue
--fifty cents for a tiny thing
--encircles your finger and
makes you
feel like a princess of Persia.

Fifty cents is not too much to pay
for that.

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conversations:

Claire -- Yes!! In the days when you could actually get something with a five dollar voucher :).

Caitlin -- It's terribly embarrassing; I agree! Twenty years back is far enough to go without the experience being too painful, but reading anything within the last ten or particularly five or so years makes me cringe. I rarely re-read my journals for that reason.

Kristy -- Hooray for being 1980 children. Long live puffy stickers!

Lizzie Balans -- I would love to know your deeply-provoked thinkings! Do share more!