Kengsington Market

Gay punk rock
Asian guys with dreads and
skinny white girls with low-flung flares
and died black hair.

All that’s needed for nourishment:
organic ice cream,
mango hempseed banana smoothies
for all purposes, says the sign:
“Having an Affair? We Cater Too!”

and the eye-open, seat-sharing strangers
tossed up on the ragged edges of the road
smile, not asking to be entertained,
but caught up in the mirror of who we’d be
if we were born Russian, or angry, or short.

No corners meet cleanly here.
Delivery trucks and tricycles
slowly part rivers of
sun-warmed fish, incense, spilled beer
and the lilting sweep
of many tongues slipping over each other
in well-kept ignorance.