fulton market

fulton market is a dinner plate
of a street

                 I walk down

wearing a dinner jacket (of sorts)

and gloves. 

                    unlike many meals
there is first a dumpster
perched on a dovetailing glacier
that bleeds rust,
                         flecks of sea
scales, silver pepper on ice
and by the salty smell of it
we’re having fish

but as any eater knows

dinner really begins with pork
where the tines of a fork-

lift carve into the curb. they 

are propane powered, 

turning on dimes. they 

haul meatpacked sirloins and flanks

while disused shanks 

wind up in Scrap Waste,

(a truck that conveniently trundles 

by at eleven).

                     it travels across 

the carved curbs leaving curlicues 

of rubbed off rubber

as the hunks of fat and flesh leave
bits of fat on its metal pieces.

these are the macro
markings of a morning industry.
The Jungle where buzzwords

circle over head 

but never swoop down

to the ruts and grooves

because there is nothing

- no blood - that should course

through these veins while

meat is packed, boxed, 

saran-wrapped

in the shadow of that skyscraper full of ice

(for cold storage)
and everywhere, there hangs in the air,
the smell of old, wet fur.

are you still proud?

old hog-butcher? or have you

grown starved and thin, 

hiding your knubbly bones, 

your bloody hands beneath a clean

apron in the morning sun.

is it for shame that you

hose down the sidewalk 

by five?

            in any case, you missed

a liver and a breast and a pair

of lungs here on the street.

          
but the trucks don't seem to mind.
they trace time the same way that it carves

streaks into overused china

gathering the signs of use
along with those of disinterest.

on fulton, there’s always a puddle
to push down the drain

and Blommer's will cloak your stench

with chocolate, and suds

will accompany blood to where

it all began, as so much froth

bobbing on the lake.