Everything’s Perfect
by Odin Roark

Rio’s open market day
Bag fillin’
Day old mango and limes
Under tarpaulins-sweating

Tank topped ladies
“Baratas Baratas”
The call for cheap cheap
Bananas on barbed iron
Catching high noon light
Pleading to be eaten
But browning at mach speed

Two teenage girls
Gathered food in bags
Off to sell their own produce
Flesh made servile for men

Men’s every day refusal to pay for love
Lessons learned painfully early
Little goes as they’d like
Unless of course
They aspire to nothing

Back in cardboard city
The mangos prove over ripe
But the limes squirt their juices
Splattering beautiful eyes
Making thankful tears of joy
Another day’s survival

Many believe
Everything’s perfect
Whatever that be