“The Midnight Lending Market” by Ann Leamon

The midnight market comes to town.

on bright nights when the moon is full.

It sets up on the old fairgrounds,

the other side of Ricker Hill.

All the rides have fallen still

the animals have bedded down,

shadows soak the air like ink,

corners sharp enough to kill.

The carny crowds are long since gone.

They’ll be back tomorrow.

The visitors we have tonight,

who’ve come from 

someplace down the way

are seeking something stranger here:

They want a dream to borrow

A traveler’s dream or a priest’s,

for variety, a beast’s. Insert yourself

into their world, let their hopes and fears unfurl.

They will get a dreamless night;

in your own bed, you’re taking flight

down unknown streets,

in lovers’ arms, perhaps you’ll learn

an anthill’s charms. You’ll waken, weary,

with a view of a world completely new.

Before you borrow, understand

you won’t quite ever leave the land

of dreamy thrall you’ve entered in,

another life inside your skin.

Artist Statement

For the past quarter century, I’ve written about finance and venture capital to pay the bills. Sometimes my poetry intersects with finance, as occurred when I read about the Federal Reserve’s “overnight rate,” which became this poem.

Ann Leamon’s writing spans the genres from finance to poetry, and has been published in Terrain, Plume, MicroLit Almanac, North Dakota Quarterly, and River Teeth, among others. She holds a BA (Honors) in German from Dalhousie University/University of King’s College, an MA in Economics from the University of Montana, and an MFA in Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She lives on a river in Maine with her husband and a Corgie-Lab mix.