Two days I bargained over this brass round of beasts that, breaching from each other, ring my wrist. A man at a batik-stall frowned, admiring his tribe's artistry, the sting of loss in his smile, as he congratulated me on my low price. Without understanding the myths, it bought the bronze curve they created. The Mobil-oil wife guides her in-laws on blue Lake Toba while the ferry's decibels of sixties' rock drown her captions on the view, her news that all the tribes were cannibals before the Dutch converted them. "The crew," she tells me, "don't seem to mind being poor, not at least the way we would mind, for sure." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AGAINST THE REST OF THE YEAR by JAMES GALVIN TUNK (A LECTURE ON MODERN EDUCATION) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON A BIRTHDAY SONG by SIDNEY LANIER THE EXPANDED COMPOSITION by CLARENCE MAJOR LEAVES OF A MAGAZINE by MARIANNE MOORE TUNICA PALLIO PROPRIOR by MARIANNE MOORE |