By Fred Pollock
The arcades around the central square
are very clean, but in such a way
as not to make one think
disorder would be more vivid.
The weather, too: perennial sunny fall;
food various, all satisfying, none wasted.
At a modest kiosk, I inspect
a micro-sculpture, a fingering-piece;
there are five or six on display.
Too handsome to be bored by a keychain,
it could accompany any life
in purse or pocket, often retrieved,
reassuring. I reach for my wallet;
but the shopkeeper-sculptor,
with a gesture I later can’t recall,
reminds me ... I make the same mistake
at other stores, leaving one with a cape,
another with a cane
whose knob, a fierce gold wolf, seems
to be considering the advantages
of dogdom. One is only required
to love the thing, to hear and appreciate
the process by which it was made, talk a bit,
leave one’s name and email, become
to some extent a friend. Beneath an archway,
a woman, middle-aged and lovely,
says, almost in passing, that she senses
a lack of confidence or hope.
I sit across from her at her small table,
crowds passing behind me and on the curb behind her,
and am changed. “For free,” I marvel,
but she demurs: “What helps one bear
one’s burdens is itself, though easier,
a burden.” Then an acupuncturist,
along a quiet corridor
in one of the buildings, makes me handsomer
and holds me while I weep. As I return
to the square, low clouds dull
the chiaroscuro of the archways,
the colors of wares and crowd. I search
my pockets; perhaps I’ll buy some tchotchke,
or a bag of socks.