Age of ... / Cultivation/ Budapest's Best - Analecta 

Farmer's Market. We thumb our noses 
at doilies, baked goods, radishes­
torha nya calls: 
gold nugget nibs of noodles 
homemade by hands 
that await us-
The Hungarians. 

A dash of paprika-red freckles 
speckle the liver-spots of 
his knowing hands. 
Unfurling like the gnarled 
knots of tree roots 
they knead, fold, and 
knead the dumpling dough. 

Atop a leather stool his grandson 
perches, pinching off dough 
for the drying. 
Still pinching, he winks at the 
wrinkled wad of 
ones 1 thrust out 
for the torhanya. 

Apple-plump and apple-sweet shines one 
Yellow Vidalia while 
scores of garlic 
cloves hang poised for the undead. 
Dice both finely. 
Salvation costs 
a crumpled dollar. 

Bowed down to the mother-herb, we glean 
Flat Leaf, not Italian 

Budapest's Best 
Laurel Wiederman-Bieschke 

3 



' 

to be scrubbed clean 
until squeak-worthy, until 
emerald leaves streak 
green my knife hand. 
Pepper with parsley. 
Don't forget the paprika, lots of 
Hungarian paprika: 
Budapest's Best­
a squat tin can of 
sweet, wax-bodied 
red peppers 
dried in ruby strands. 

Untitled 
By bill mcC/ain 

I am really athletic and right-handed 
Made of wood 
You are short and sweet and rubber banded 
And that's pretty good 
See I don't wanna wanna don't wanna 
Do the things I should 
Everyone else is evil fuckers 
We're just misunderstood 

I'm thinking about purchasing a megaphone, some new clothes 
Angling for the motherlode 
Looking for something new to loathe, something ugly l can grow 
Something red that really goes 

You are skinny and pretty and pretty handy 
1 am just skinny and nobody understands me 

1 would die for ice cream 
And l would die for porn queens 
I would die to be interesting 
I would love to be anything 

4 Poetry 

-
You use me up like you smoke a cig: 
breathing me in only to blow me oc 
turning me into ashes you 
transform into a light brocade, 
unraveling at the slightest touch oft 

Stub me out when you've had enou 
or when you've smoked me to my fi 
and you just can't stand my taste 
anymore. 

Maybe this t ime you'll stomp me ou 
once l hit the pavement 
with a barely audible thud, 
scraping your boot, 
making me leave my innards 
in a trail on the asphalt. 

No matter how I'm disposed of, 
be it fire-down in sand, 
or sp layed on the cement, 
or sp it on and tossed in the garbage, 
or thrown out of the car window, 
my embers fleeing from my body 
with the force of the speed you are t 
you will leave me wherever I end up, 
and walk away without a second tho