(early) at the book fair
               ---------------------------------------------------------

               in a large tall hall -- tables
               on an old waxed parquet floor
               not many here yet -- seems like
               just us publishers authors

               the authors sit and chat in twos
               some sit alone and do not chat
               one author in a hat sits plump
               well -- fat -- bemused?  bespectacled

               i chat with a crusty john-wayne grandma-type
               a faculty advisor in author-black
               a gray mike royko-like bushy-brow author
               a sweet-smilin big-guy spoken-word poet

               with a ruddy organizer who's sweating
               and with the down-on-the-farm john-wayne's daughter
               and with that nasal assistant editor
               a stick -- freckled! greeneyed hazeled gooselike.  mmmmm.

               will there be slender
               sales today?

               my cornucopia takes up a table
               twenty-five titles in multiples gleam
               a smiling swell of backyard tomatos
               glimpsed from afar or enjoyed from within?

               see?  gleaming stacked neatly -- juicy meat
               mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds
               when the first bite and i exchange greetings
               she lays her hands on the red

               one!


                       Marek Lugowski
                       23 July 2000
                       Chicago, Illinois