Midnight Market

Stalls unfold like painted fans

along the street that never sleeps.

A vendor counts with jeweled hands

the saffron, cloves, and copper heaps.

A violin, too tired to lie,

unspools a tune of borrowed spice.

The moon is cheap. The stars are high.

We purchase dark at twice the price.

I buy a peach, a thread of song,

a map that names no place I know.

By dawn the market will be gone—

and I will be a little so.