Long Path, Day 2: Palisades Farmer's Market

Two days ago
I slurped a thin sheen of grease
off a dollar slice
with a new friend
local hustler,
a Sec-8 All Star

Now it's mid-morning
Two days walk
from city limits
and the farmer's market
a couple hundred yards
from the trail
hustles smiles

It's a social occaision
my feet are propped
It's smiles and puppies
and air smelling slightly
like fresh yogurt
its tang plays free association
with my childhood
and I am as easy as my feet

Outside Sal's
J told me excitedly
he'd love to go hiking
says it eagerly
knowing he's not going
to get clowned by
a white boy from
Pennsylvania

In Palisades
a man gives me an apple
after I offer a quarter
west Africa trills softly
on his tongue
the Orchards of Conklin
have farmed Rockland
from 1712

A woman watches
at the trash can
as two white men
mistake her table as empty
and then seated
ask to join her
and she politely excuses herself.