Suddenly the daughter puts her left hand to the forehead
of her mother. As if to mark the furrow with the cross
that only love can bear. As if she is the priest
and her mother the penitent. She tries on
the mother’s sunglasses. But they are too large
and there is so much darkness behind them.
Then the mother begins to speak. The daughter sighs deeply,
inhales the bitter smoke of a cigarette,
as the story unfolds for more than an hour.
Finally the daughter pushes away
from the table, pushes away slowly
as if it is the smooth body
of a lover to whom she says at last,
no, enough. She leaves. The mother looks around
at all the tables where no one sits whom she loves.
She looks longest at the girl who reads alone
at the counter, absorbed in The Diary
of Anne Frank. For a moment it seems as if the mother
might interrupt the girl. But no: what, after all,
can be said to a child lost in the story
of another’s life? Streetlights come on. The mother
puts her sunglasses away. Now it is time to smile good-bye
to the man behind the counter. To look at the girl in love
with the girl in her book. Nobody interrupts anybody: the story goes on.