Market Day

Market Day

We have traveled all this way

to see the real France:

these trays of apricots and grapes spilled out

like semi-precious stones

for us to choose; a milky way

of cheeses whose names like planets

I forget; heraldic sole

displayed on ice, as if the fish

themselves had just escaped,

leaving their scaled armor behind.

There’s nothing like this

anywhere, you say. And I see

Burnside Avenue in the Bronx, my mother

sending me for farmer cheese and lox:

the rounds of cheese grainy and white, pocked

like the surface of the moon;

the silken slices of smoked fish

lying in careful pleats; and always,

as here, sawdust under our feet

the color of sand brought in on pant cuffs

from Sunday at the beach.

Across the street on benches,

my grandparents lifted their faces

to the sun the way the blind turn

towards a familiar sound, speaking

another language I almost understand.