bargaining

so, if i shake my head and say no
walk away from the table and refuse the best offer
will the guy call me back and give me a better deal?

on our honeymoon in morocco
lo these many hippie years ago
we walked the souk in marrakesh
and amber beads caught my eye.
thick, i thought, and so rich and my husband
adept at negotiation even then- pre real estate life-
tossed out 5 dinar ( or whatever the moroccan currency was )
and the grinning merchant sensing the hook in the cheek says
ah sir, but surely-- 15 dinar is a better price and
we turned away with a smile knowing
we were hooked but
chosing to believe we had power
and began to walk away..
and the merchant called after us--
"ah sir sir. 15 dinar no good for you, 5 dinar no good for me
so what will be goodness" he said, toothy and rotten.

i believe there was even sweet tea in aluminum pressed tin pots
and mint leaves caught between his black teeth and
we did indeed settle midway
a magnificent 9 rupiah
winning the prize and
i took my amber beads and
wore them proudly
until that evening when tony , unable
to leave well enough alone, took
the tell tale match from the bug ridden hotel lobby
and placed its blue flame under the bead.
true amber doesn't blacken, he said
but my plastic beads did.
i still wore them,
i had them,
we bought them and
i wore them not really seeing them as a
symbol of deception but rather
as a emblem of making life work-- going with the negotiation, accepting the prize, making lemonade from lemons and making magic from scorn, as my mother once said.

so we are in the dickering mode with god and oncologists
and T trying to pin down just exactly
what he will get from this deal or that
being offered by the gods.

there was another negotiation in morocco. i swapped two pairs of jeans with monkey merchants to secure him a geode and i thought he would be so happy that i was so brave to
meet the monkey merchants alone and make the deal without him and he was furious i had given away his best jeans to the scummy scam artists at the edge of the town of lambchops and Shit Mountain. so i learned not to bargain without him and instead i watch from the sidelines and
finger the geodes i already have and
count them lucky enough for they are in our hands
and we have not been raped and brutalized by the monkey merchants
quite yet

i will see where he will land

we still have no answers
the bargaining with fate and pet scans is falsely empowering perhaps
but it has drawn me from my bed at 3 am
and i am dickering for dawn.