Poem for Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The Fruit Vendor

This stretch of highway has poor drainage,
I thought about calling to her. If it floods,
your fruit could drift away in the
muck.

Her feet were propped against a trailer
full of twenty-something ripe melons.
This called to mind Lorca, loitering by the
watermelons in a certain Californian
supermarket.

Around her, the atmosphere dampened
and grayed, advanced towards ashes. You
should have seen how oblivious she was
when lightning broke the stitches in the
northern sky;

when the thunder ripped through sound
just as those bullets had done on
that summer day near sleepy
Alfacar.