At the French Market

By Lee Meitzen Grue

We buy vegetables the colors of coral and jade,

in the deep might of the man with his apron

in the deep night of the late radio.

We walk with hollow heels through the damp shed,

the peppers incredibly green, 

the tomatoes     lush as the fruits in dreams,

too ripe, too red,

I press their flesh, feel the skin under my fingers.

The strawberries, too are large;

the size of three berries in one,

succulent as breasts, absurd as breasts

presented in small latticed boxes.

I lift the boxes, view them from the bottom

where the berries are gray, whitely bearded.

I pass on down the hall, roofed by tin emptiness,

walled by night, and the wet sounds of tires.

I arrive.

there is a heavyman with hot eyes

selling.

His berries are larger, cheaper;

I lift the boxes.

They are perfect bottom and top.

He sells me two boxes cheaper still,

but over there near the front is something.

fern, very green,

with a white stalk plaited into itself like rope.

From down the black corridor you return to say:

It is anise.

How do I cook it? I ask the man with charred eyes.

Boil it, cook it in sauce, in salad eat the leaves.

I go back to the wooden box,

lift out strands of green hair,

some of it is a faded blonde. It seems old.

I pick near the bottom for the best,

but the heavyman comes,

and lifts out green after green after green

until he fills my hands

with a stalk as thick as my braid

and he says:

Eat the leaves.

I pinch small tendrils and stuff my mouth.

Lips nibbling green threads,

I am content feeding near large animals.

Finally, he takes his eyes and leaves.

My head lifts high with this taste of anise.

Long ago, in our low bed,

we drank anisette,

and the sweet fire in our throats

melted our arms and legs

into a center which still cradles

this small fire we carry

away from here.

*   *   *   *   *

Source: French Quarter Poems (1979) Long Measure Press