The Fly Market

The Fly Market

So many times we would scrounge for money.
A few pennies here,
A few pennies there.
Sometimes, if we were lucky,
A nickel would appear before our wide eyes.

Packing our pennies
(some of them wheat-backs from dad's collection)
In our pockets,
Feeling rich with the nickel we found, too,
We would jump on our bikes
And start our half mile journey down Seventh Avenue -
To the Fly Market!
We were actually planning on buying them out
With the fourteen cents we had between us.

In our eyes, though,
We did!
We came away from there with bags full of
Carmel bull's eyes, licorice records,
Chocolate licorice twists . . . our favorite!
Red and black "shoe-strings", Mary Janes,
Candy buttons on the long, thin piece of paper,
Candy cigarettes, wax bottles filled with sweet liquid.
Pixie sticks, Slo-Pokes,licorice snaps, and Neccos.
Jaw breakers that would last for hours!
Red-hot licorice nickels,Boston Baked Beans,
And the sweetest bubble gum on earth!

We thought we were rich in those days!
For a few hours, we had everything a kid would want
In our little brown bags full of candy.
Mom always thought we were sick
When we didn't finish all our dinner.
But somehow, I think she understood.
Somehow,
I think she knew where we had gone that afternoon.
Mothers are like that, you know?

Leaving our dinner plates half eaten,
We would go to bed on a full stomach . . .
Smiling and wondering
Where we were going to find more pennies
For our next trip to the Fly Market.

Somehow, we always found a penny here
Or a penny there.
At times, it would take a week!

But we were just kids.
We could wait!