Heads or Tails

by Kersten Christianson

Another summer road trip and she

was off the island like a chickadee in flight.

Winters were for clam digging by lantern,

gathering, steaming, chowdering of bivalves;

whereas summers were for pickle hunting,

parachuting into one Saturday market, or another,

searching for the best, magic dill pickles jarred

by hand, proffered by cornichon connoisseurs.

Saturday markets sparkle like a campfire.

Iridescent bubbles drift on the warm winds,

flutter around stands of harvest tomatoes and fat,

thumb-digit sized raspberries, August picked.

Fireweed grows around billowing tents

of market goods: Paper bouquets of boreal

wildflowers, blossoms all shades of alpenglow,

the sharp bite of Yukon-roasted coffee beans,

the vendor of homemade kites, another seller

peddling used books. Chunky bumblebees flit,

wander current and draft. Raven plucks

at a penny glittering in the later afternoon sun.