We were sticky sweat onto the sheets and over one another. The oscillating fan rushed a wave of warm air over our bare bodies and clicked and clacked a way around. I kissed her neck and tasted fuzzy salt. I could see the craters of her pores and the mascara of her eye glop bunched around her sandman trap, like pepper in a boiling pot. She whispered,

"Farmer's Market". in my ear and licked the lobe.

I stirred unrest and crunched into a ball. She kissed me again as I rolled over the too soft bed, all skinny knees.

We brushed our teeth together and ate bananas on the way to and in the car. I didn't want to tell her about the time I had spent there. We drove and parked and the heat sunk into us so we wanted to be alone and not hold hands.

Everything is fresh here. The pint baskets and paper plates are spilling over the edges of the 4X8 folding tables. I'm after baby eggplant, snow peas, Thai basil and chilies. The girl with me has already purchased some coffee and cheese curds. I am thankful for the coffee, but it is already steaming and sweat beads out of my forehead like Lite Bright bulbs. I can feel the bulbs of saline stink beer leak from my upper lip through the forest of stubble. Itching miserably. I look at her and the air is hazy periwinkle, like sediment settling in a glass of sky. The girl has a curd between the chopstick like fingers of her free hand and her lips envelope the dairy ball. I am disgusted. She makes me eat one and it scratches the velvet carpet of my tongue. Then it gets slimy while the acrid slap wriggles around in the mouth. I wash it down with some snow peas and a sip of coffee. I gag.

Walking down the aisles, I am looking for the friendly Hmong woman who sold me a plate of kohlrabi, green beans and the tiny eggplant that taste like currants, she threw in some kafir lime leaves the week before for four dollars. Most of the women are Hmong. They smile and ask me,

"He-LOW, How are you?"

I half know the lingo and only know to look into their brown eyes. It their eyes, I feel a sinking sadness because I am brought to shame. They see it in me too and I know and they feel that I am not so bad and understand more than the rest of the milling folks that wander by…
And their children abhor me, They, in their Nike tennis shoes and Polo shirts, they scoff at me because I bring out the old world in their mother. They look at me as a satirist of modern day liberals. They want me away because they think their parents have to assimilate, accept the easy white panache lifestyle of America. I denounce my nationality and they pity me for not changing what we have done. The parents don't know better. Even though I'm a dollar sign with love, I am still love with a dollar sign, and either way. The children are shy with their assessments and detail preserves them. Tough nut to crack when you want to impress a girl, when you are hung over, after a wake 'n bake.

The girl is hanging better than I am. She has found me lemonade and got an oyster shucked for me, she just gave a smile for it. She is really pretty. She finagled her way into, past and through things. I felt heavy and could only think of falling asleep to the chirps of birds and the filtered bow of gray light dawn that sank into the panes of the window.

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