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Noon at Haymarket
The eye of a distant woman rivals the assailant midday sun,
as she rolls her cart brimming with papayas, 
over the foot of a small child.
The cloying atmosphere of blue crabs baking in a bucket of melted ice, 
drowns the scream of anguish.

Old men grope tomatoes.	
Bruised peaches wink and beckon. 
Vendors sneer. 
Everything rests upon the precipice of ripeness-

A pale tide of sky rubs against brick building tops, feebly smoothing their once distended edges. 
The weight of fruits won numbs limbs to transcendence. 
Softer now there is shade. 
Hay and smoke emerge from beneath the damp smell of sewer, and the city feasts.
Soon it will slumber.
Elise Bickford
Published in Issue 37