Wet Market (second draft)

In the wet market
a poet searches the stalls.
Desiring to cook something
with AIDS,
he looks over a tray of  I have AIDS, sniffs
at a basket of this is the name of my pain,
tries to decide what can be done with
there is a flower that grows in plastique
and blooms in blood…

At another vendor, another poet is thinking
of preparing a message and weighs
the possibilities of Valkyrie against
Knight Rider Barbie, tries to choose, fails,
buys both and moves on.

A third poet
rejects all the proffered produce of love,
the red breath, the silk finger,
the charred emerald eyes. The seller
throws up his hands in disgust…

All testing, humming over select spice, savoring
the differences between the modern diamond
and the heirloom adamantine, deciding whether
the dusk will taste blue or azure, whether to boil the whole
in a stream or a creek, leave it covered and simmering for hours
with sky or heaven or firmament. 

In the wet market
people dream before they buy and go home
to poems grilled or steamed, broiled
to black.  AIDS becomes an easy metaphor
and falls into hot stale grease, a woman’s war on denial
is tossed with field greens and eaten swiftly before
the entree, and love is just a green puree
on a cheap glass plate.

On the edge of the market,
on the way home,
a table holds bowls of fresh water,
herbs, fresh fish
soaked in lime juice. 
A sign on the table reads:

Whoever tastes the fresh water
will want to taste the herbs. 
Whoever tastes the herbs
will want to taste the fish.
Whoever tastes the fish
will turn from the market
and go home simple and satisfied.

Who will stop there?
No one today.
There are too many stands serving
quick meals, too many ways to overfill
basic needs, to answer want with gluttony.

If the sign had only advertised
ceviche,
this might have been
a different story.