after peeling the pineapple in seven smooth slices, the huffing woman gouged out the fruit's black eyes, carving an unbroken yellow helix following the dimples. i knew the fresco natural stall keeper. for a night, she was my patient fruiting stones in her vesicula as lumpy as oversunned grapes.
eight minutes before the next bus, i nursed myself to a fat cup of what must be her version of mango bellini - white wineless, sparkling nonetheless. she didn't recognize me. my smile was wasted on her as the rinds rotting in a slop bin haunted by nattering flies.
maybe she didn't want me to remember her. a coda to a norteno ballad, a half-drunk neighbor insisted on interpreting for me in my first year here at the bronx, treacly pleads "remember me with smiles not with tears."
as she handed me my change, the quarters and the dimes blinked on my palm like leaden eyes.
