19
He showed me the album. “But this?” I asked, surprised at such beauty.
I knew his sister, her face somewhat the picture’s—coarsened.
“My mother before her marriage.”
Coming in, I had met
her shriveled face and round shoulders.
Now, after the day’s work, his father at cards with friends
still outshouted the shop’s wheels.
Afterwards, when I left, I had to go through their candy store
with its one showcase of candy,
in little heaps in little saucers, ever so many for a penny.
They kept no lights in the window. A single gas jet flared in the empty store.