Okay, I wrote this one a while ago... Then I am going to edit, LOL. It's sort of a... Well, someone who stuck with me when I was waiting tables at a high end restaurant in Georgetown. I saw her every night as we left (she worked next door) and she just had this impact on me, that I wanted to try and capture.
Closing the Restaurant
Each night, as consistent as the seasons
turn, she steps shy from the creaking door
into the alley, where every baby rat
is squealing in its nest.
Her ink eyes and her creased mouth
her voice like the slithers
of snakes in cane fields
will ask. "How did you do tonight
my dear. A hundred maybe? A hundred
and fifty?" a dark chuckle, "We were quiet
tonight ourselves." And she turns
with a smile on her way
like every night with her knuckled
hands freed from the grease
of the kitchen, headed home.
Her legs more bowed than
the Earth she walks on, skinny
under her spreading torso.
If she had been well fed and
leisured, her body might
have turned tall like a tree
her skin shined like ivy and her
steps sharper, but her glance
that bears nothing away
would still remain the same.
Home to her children and grand
children, and unbidden my eyes
follow the generous curve of her
back
through the trashcans over
the cracked pavement and out
to the streetlights.
Anna