A Gist

A GIST / Barry Spacks Until he died my father managed A produce market in Camden, N.J.— The Quality Market on Federal Street, City Hall across the way And two blocks farther down the "Y" Where he went to nap at 4 each day Because he woke at 4 a.m. To do the buying on Dock Street in Philly: Potatoes, spinach, oranges—the Market Closed at six with the clang of a bell. One afternoon when I was nine He settled me down to work with a bushel Of lima beans, each rotting hull Smearing black on my fingers, ugly, Yet out of the slime came delicate green Beans, young jade, a new-born green. I dropped them into a half-pint box Of wood so frail you could see the light Through amber, almost-paper sides. I filled the box, and saw them sold, My innocent beans, to a bargain-hunting Loud old Grandma of Families Who might have been the Angel of Death So musty black her clothes, with hairs On her chin: the Spirit Guardian Of rotting pods, she smiled at me And the little ones that Td set free In their light-filled box, transformed. 124 ¦ The Missouri Review ...