Keleti
Tasia M. Hane-Devore

this is what I had for lunch, the carts
stacked against the right of my eye:

a banal exercise in motion,
blooming center of the Budapest train station,

the women under umbrellas.
a man carries bags home to his

wife, or maybe it's his leather briefcase
filled with figs, it has gotten

wet in the rain above the station. one woman
at the fruit seller has high cheekbones, the other

has luminous skin,
ghostly pale, the sole of her foot perfect

in her brown shoe. I can see
by the way she stands, ardently,

her hands reaching for muskmelon as she tells
her companion the pliancy of skin,

she is waiting to say something, to tell us a secret,
but the men retract her whispers, all mystery

fallen like leaves, and she turns.

1996 © 2010