Jake's Flea Market

It was an anti-romantic era in Europe, especially among the nobility and the wealthy: Most often, marriages were arranged to serve political and economic agendas. And people in vestments usually had a second--- a third--- even a fourth religion. And the relationships between teachers and students, and masters and apprentices in both the trades and the arts, were closer to personal….


iii

rather than have you 
waste yourself on the adulteration of a virgin

i’d waste myself for her family’s wealth

i’d appoint you to read the dogma   
write the sermons
and on the sunday mornings ascend
the pulpit at st mary’s and 
preach before i give you 
the time away from your study of theology   

i’d go on that pilgrimage