We got to market late again
arriving with no time to spare.
Some farmers were already gone
back to henhouses and spinach rows.
Some stalls were bare plywood
embarrassingly nude of food.

So we had to buy eggs from a skinny
cackling woman hawking next
to the grizzled onion seller
with a bad comb-over,
who may be her father or brother
but finally got a haircut, thank goodness.

While we stood waiting, the round women
next to me took every
last one of the red bell peppers—
two fat bags of waxed crimson
trucked in from Florida this time of year—
so I took a basket of what looked like
badly treated Christmas ornaments,
shades of green and yellow
not even coming close to red.

The ladies in the spice shop hobbled
back and forth behind the counter
on swollen feet –
the end of shift approaching—
carrying their smiles above weary bodies,
yet remember what we like
and apologize for being out
a certain sausage they make.
Come back next week, we’ll have more.

The baker’s wife had rolls half price,
our thin reward for coming late,
but warns us, all the booths
with local strawberries sold out
already, so sorry, they were so sweet.

As we made our way dodging
the dwindling crowd,
two cotton mesh bags expanded
to hold abundant bunches of broccoli—
three heads for a dollar, lady,
take ‘em off my hands, lady—
so we waddled out of the market
like packed mules sagging
under the weight of our own provisions.