In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Narcissus ijloshed to their slender throats in deep buckets, the forced narcissi bud, the fluted taxi­yellow of their klaxons flagging traffic to standstill. Who has eyes for new potatoes or the boy swooping them, stream­smooth stones, into his full­grown hands? Between customers, he preens in a pocket mirror only to be damped by his father, a river god misting bouquets of broccoli, radish corsages and parsley boutonnieres. Wielding a knife whose appetite has whetted the blade to a slice of itself, the boy shaves a cauliflower. Flesh of firm unblemished apples, sleek muscled body of water— some think to court him over cucumbers and tomatoes, to hang in echo on the little he mutters to hurry them out of his shadow, a crate of trimmings balanced on his ripe shoulder: the limp, the bruised and gone­to­mold destined to grace an altar roughed of empty boxes, beauty exacting tribute where it may, left to exalt itself in rank decline. A brace of daffodils quivering in his back pocket, he hoses the sidewalk's dry bed free of carrot stub and lost cabbage leaf, rude toy ferry the gutter swirls on its way. ...

Share