Pat Emile is assistant editor and Jill-of-all-trades for this column. Were it not for her help I couldn't keep these weekly selections coming. Here she is in another role, as a poet, stopping in a little food market and noticing things the way a poet should notice them. 




They Dance Through Granelli's 
 

He finds her near the stack

of green plastic baskets waiting to be filled

and circles her waist with his left arm,

entwines her fingers in his, pulls her toward him,

Muzak from the ceiling shedding a flashy Salsa,

and as they begin to move, she lets

her head fall back, fine hair swinging

a beat behind as they follow

their own music - a waltz - past the peaches

bursting with ripeness in their wicker baskets,

the prawns curled into each other

behind cold glass, a woman in a turquoise sari,

her dark eyes averted. They twirl twice

before the imported cheeses, fresh mozzarella

in its milky liquid, goat cheese sent down

from some green mountain, then glide past

ranks of breads, seeds spread across brown crusts,

bottles of red wine nested together on their sides.

He reaches behind her, slides a bouquet

of cut flowers from a galvanized bucket, tosses

a twenty to the teenaged boy leaning

on the wooden counter, and they whirl

out the door, the blue sky a sudden surprise.

 

 

American Life in Poetry is made possible by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2016 by Pat Hemphill Emile, 'They Dance Through Granelli's'. Poem reprinted by permission of Pat Hemphill Emile. Introduction copyright 2016 by the Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-06.