Each town wears the faces he knows so well. They come to him, puffy
and pink with eagerness, their hands like platters of gold. They come, too,
sharp and shadowed with greed, and the wares they seek are stark
as splinters. He presents them only in black and white. Sometimes
the faces are gaunt and starch white with abandon
or surrender. Their fingers are too fragile to hold the prize
and for them he pulls down a cloud from the sky
with silver lining in all the right places, and whispers of wings
upon which they are delivered to the feeble.
He reads each one as easily as well fingered pages, their corners
dog-eared like ancient puppies, their margins embellished
with lead scribbles denoting self importance and superiority,
their covers flamboyantly dedicated to those long dead church-going
soup-making, lace-wearing, cane-wielding
pioneers of Life. He laughs, of course. What else is there for a peddler
to do? The silver has dripped from his moist lips, the shine
has dazzled their eyes and mesmerized. All there is left to do
is get them to sign. To sign on a very dotted line.

© Tina Zabielski 2011-2019