I walk through an open-air market
On Saturday mornings in the Spring,
As I did with my grandparents as a boy,
And with my father in years before, but now
I hold her hand as we cut a path through
The crowds past stalls where farmers,
And flower peddlers bark goods and prices
With voices echoing from a cathedral-like
Clerestory and high ceiling.

The market is a long awning with red brick
Entrance arches in the Roman style,
Creating a patchwork of light and shadow.
We steal large purple grapes to feed each other,
And pick strawberries as big as apples from
Cardboard flats and hold them up to each
Other’s mouth tempting one sinful bite.
I whisper chewing stolen fruit: "Felix Culpa"
She laughs and pushes another grape in my mouth.


Junkmen In Paradise

Walking together in the park
When light soft and fading
Turns aspen leaves gold

Along paths lined with pines
I pick puffs of dandelions and
Blow seeds to airborne grace

And I tell her I never knew a place
So perfect with trees in foliage quivering
Where topmost leaves meet the sky

Silhouetted in last light aspens and oaks
Stand like figures projected across
A window shade on summer nights

I stare at needle covered branches
Of fine machining as if they were
In a jeweler’s display case

And even as junkmen on my street
Tie down and move their shit in pickups
I smell lilies of the valley that we picked

Never knowing a place so perfect
That I cannot touch it but must wait
To be touched on June nights

All work featured on this page are the copyrighted property of Doug Tanoury

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