She is not afraid to show her breasts in public
she sits under her tattered umbrella and ladels out her sour Fula milk.
her brash friend with the buckets of juice and a tray of fruit
calls out from beneith her shade and becons me to buy quel que petit chose.
another market woman tests her few words of english
and approaches me in her bright-colored but faded pagne.
I move aside for a young girl
balancing a tub of oranges on her head.
she swivels around and continually stares at me as she passes,
not tripping over the uneaven, trash spewn pathway-
not dropping a thing out of her tub on high-
nor colliding with the man rushing by with an extremely heavy bag of rice on his back -
and although he sweats under the weight of his load, he smiles.
here I was thinking I am in the way,
but really I'm a welcome mid-day market distraction.
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