beets

In another life,
I would sell produce at such a market,
rise before dawn on a Saturday morning,
head to the fields for one last harvest before securing
the back of the pickup and the drive
to the crowds of the city.

The man selling the beets is bursting
with health, red-cheeked and cheery-voiced.
I am a tourist on her bicycle, camera in hand,
asking sheepishly to take a photograph, as if
I’d never encountered such exotics.

He gives me
the okay, and I step back a little
to get everything into the frame,
trying to be the artist, claiming the beets
as if for a family portrait.

I am hoping the man
will sell them all today, even though
they aren’t strawberries or kettle corn or cupcakes,
I am hoping someone, someone else
will bring them home.