Rolling her cart across the cobblestones she sang:
Pie lady!
Pie lady!
Sweet and savory pies
For supper or dessert!
This was in New Orleans the other day, but in Madrid when I was a child there were many such street vendors’ songs. I deciphered the rag man’s song and we memorized it, but there were several we could not identify except by melody and rhythm.
Thinking of those songs now I remember smells — gasoline, garlic frying in olive oil, the straw stuck on unwashed eggs…, sounds — the crashing of convent bells, voices murmuring en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo…, and sights — coal carriers covered in coal dust, the dark mouths of subway stations, bullet holes in the walls of ancient plazas.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
My warped mind thought first of *The Barber of Seville*. What’s in those pies, anyway?
I think sweet potatoes, squash, things like that! Sometimes kids come selling them door to door … they’re good … but I like it when the shrimp man comes, “I pulled these out of the Gulf this morning, Ma’am.”