Vol 2 No 1 2008

Pike Place

Under a gray fine as sand grains
Puget Sound sounds astound    
no one for the crowd is pressed

against the gills of a fish stall
rapt at sinewy young mongers 
tossing carp, filleting them

with an efficiency of motion,
doling out coral nubs of salmon
jerky to a sea of flailing hands,

wisecracking the entire time,
minor stars in their own minds.
Throughout labyrinthine arcades

in Seattle’s oldest market, edibles  
are treated like art objects: 
rows of mussels iridescent in ice,

bell peppers near neon spilling
carefully over wooden bushels,
uncapped jars of jalapeno jam

framed by sprigs of rosemary,
but I wonder how many remember
Executive Order 9066, what FDR

signed after Pearl Harbor, leading
to the internment of over a hundred
thousand Japanese-Americans,

many of whom owned fish stalls
in this very market, had to sell out
at month’s notice to middlemen,

for a fraction of their worth?
Families brush past me, beaming,
the snap and pop of grocery sacks

against their backs overwritten
by covers some street musician
I cannot see wails on a sax.

Outside, below the market, ferries
stream in and out of Elliot Bay,
trim, white, heavily-manned vessels

surrounded by swooping, swiveling
gulls that mooch whatever they can.
I haven’t seen a single Asian all day.

Ravi Shankar