City market sprawls
Under covered roofs --
Blocks and blocks
With no outside, and yet
Not really inside either.
Miles of food:
Raw, cooked, and
-- Sometimes -- living,
Squirming in buckets
Or trying to flip to freedom.
In the witching hour,
With blue tarps up
And food stowed
And only streetlamps lit,
A drunk stumbles through,
Crushing an overripe
Peach underfoot.

