Jake's Flea Market

spring was arranged on a handcart

over a road rutted
by plough wheels   rolled
out of one of schonburg’s
villages that are near neighbors to the town

a young peasant’s wife
pulled her cart out of winter

flax   spun into thread and wound around spindles   
and flax woven into shirts   into wimples and bonnets

wool woven   into doublets and tunics
the itch woven into breeches

all these things done
in the smoke of a fire warmed
january and february in a peasant’s cottage

the final thing   brought
out of her house early
that late march morning was sleep

sleep wrapped in swaddling and a blanket
bedroomed in her first babe

her life arranged in her cart
giordano heard the creak of the wheel
turn in the street 

he says you went to her stall in the market

he argued down the price for a shirt

he says the argument woke
awake in her child   and her child’s hunger

let me guess you’d never seen a breast   bared
nor hunger’s distemper brought
to a teat and quieted

giordano assures me you heard her answer her name
that you heard her answer directions to her village

he asks me to ask you   to go to her
ask if she still has a spindle   wrapped with thread to sell