(early) at the book fair
		---------------------------------------------------------

		in a large tall hall -- tables 
		on an old waxed parquet floor
		not many here yet -- seems like
		just us publishers authors

		the authors sit and chat in twos
		some sit alone and do not chat
		one author in a hat sits plump
		well -- fat -- bemused?  bespectacled

		i chat with a crusty john-wayne grandma-type
		a faculty advisor in author-black
		a gray mike royko-like bushy-brow author
		a sweet-smilin big-guy spoken-word poet

		with a ruddy organizer who's sweating
		and with the down-on-the-farm john-wayne's daughter
		and with that nasal assistant editor
		a stick -- freckled! greeneyed hazeled gooselike.  mmmmm.

		will there be slender
		sales today?

		my cornucopia takes up a table
		twenty-five titles in multiples gleam
		a smiling swell of backyard tomatos
		glimpsed from afar or enjoyed from within?

		see?  gleaming stacked neatly -- juicy meat
		mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds
		when the first bite and i exchange greetings
		she lays her hands on the red

		one!


			Marek Lugowski
			23 July 2000
			Chicago, Illinois