A bell ringer hipsways by market stalls,
 
bellows hello to the man who brings the chanterelles, 
the immigrant families building bouquets of tulips

to launch like ships, the cheese makers and fishmongers, 
knife sharpeners and kombucha concocters. 
She rings her instrument along each row signaling time

for the buying and selling to begin. 
Are you feeling lost? Did you think I shifted

scenes to a mercado in San Salvador or an Irish city street? 
Please! There’s no need for a Starbucks here! 
At the Farmers Market, the tangerines reign supreme

along with local lettuce and trendy Tuscan melons.
When the bell ringer passes the blueberry farmer with eyes
 
of indigo spangled in gold, she tells him if a fork falls,
a stranger is coming to dinner and then walks on quickly
looking into the light snow of the cherry blossoms.

Her grandmother would have washed her mouth with soap 
for even looking at a man — a light bulb turning on
 
in the old woman’s head: gangster, predator, no-goodnik. 
Don’t sweep after midnight she’d say — or you’ll miss 
your good luck. She of the Lithuanian shtetl,
 
she who knew what it was like to have to obliterate
the scent of winter Daphne, the acres of daffodils.

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May.