Pia Taavila-Borsheim

Shopping

In the international market, a woman is asking
for cardamom pods, chilies, those lovely yellow
mustard seeds. In her buggy are chicken thighs,
chard, lemons the size of my fist. Her toddler’s

legs dangle and kick as he eyes slices of pineapple
and mango, clutching a stuffed lion and a pear.
He looks at me, shyly smiling, so I offer my hand.
His dimpled fingers, their pale while nails,

rest in my palm, sticky and sweet. While I coo
and praise him, his eyelashes, thick and black,
sweep and close. His mother laughs. She tells me
he is a charmer to whom all the ladies are drawn.

In that moment, I think of another market,
a bookstore, where I saw you at the podium.
After your reading, a clutch of women asked
for your autograph, pressed against you as if

so doing staked a claim. I sat still in the back row,
took in your words of seduction, your poems
full of invitation, your voice a mahogany saxophone.
I was swept away, yearning for you in my woolen wrap,

my bag of fruit slumped on the chair beside me.
Above the many heads vying, you looked across the rows
to find me waiting. Your gaze was lovely, grey with
dark blue flecks, questioning. Yes, I nodded. Yes.

Copyright © Pia Taavila-Borsheim 2018

Pia Taavila-Borsheim received her BA and MA from Eastern Michigan University (1977, 1979) and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. (1985) from Michigan State University with areas of qualification in English, Sociology, and Philosophy. She is a tenured, full professor and teaches literature and creative writing at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. In 2008, Gallaudet University Press published Moon on the Meadow: Collected Poems 1977-2007. Finishing Line Press published Two Winters in 2011, and a chapbook, Mother Mail, from Hermeneutic Chaos Press, was released in January, 2017. Love Poems is forthcoming from Cherry Grove Press in 2018.

30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review