The Woman Named After the First Woman Asks for a Poem on Gratitude During a Farmers Market in July by Michael Brockley

Eva buys a purple hydrangea from the vendor in the turquoise truck beside the poems-on-demand tent. She tells the poet behind the orange typewriter she is grateful for the mornings, after dawn showers have washed away the humidity. She samples couscous with chickpeas at a Moroccan breakfast booth. And welcomes the voices of shoppers that wash over her like the fragrance of garden phlox. With the hortensia blossom fixed behind her right ear, Eva strolls through the market in the company of a light breeze. Appreciating the new friends she makes and learning the names of leashed dogs and cats in papooses. Thor and Aragorn. Luna and Betsy Ross. The poet who types the ode to gratitude compliments Eva on her black dress that is decorated with red flowers. Florets so small they might be any hybrid from the gardens of history or fiction. Eva is grateful on this Saturday morning for her beautiful daughter, whose name, Gina, means “queen.” And thankful for her daughter’s father, as well, who is still alive. On this first weekend in July, Eva is grateful for her own name. Eva, which is a sonnet when spoken by the poet fourteen times.



Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His prose poems have appeared in The Prose Poem, confetti, and 912 Review. His prose poems are also forthcoming in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and Down in the Dirt.