On My Way Home


She glides an iron down the length
of a white cotton table cloth.
Sweat rolls from her forehead,down her temples,
in patterns from sprays of starch and lifted dust
that comes through the back door
on a summer evening breeze.

She moves with measured grace,
like a dancer on the stage-a skill passed
from mother to daughter,
in the lessons of linens and bluing.

The fallen sign
laid against the building
says: Figlio Italia,
reflecting red,orange,purple and gray, in the setting sun.
Whitewashed bricks, arched around the windows and doorways
are cast in neon lights,when the bar is open at dusk.

I pass by and there she sits, eyeglasses low on the bridge of her nose,
hunched over the small threads on an apron.
You can barely see her, past the racks of hanging tablecloths
and waiter's uniforms, clean and neatly pressed.
In a little space between her and the small doorway,
an empty old tomato cansits rusting since 1942.

Her hair, white as Tuscany marble,
styled after a fashion,
frames her rounded face,
just as she wore it
the night he left on the train for Calabria.

She still waits, she doesn't remember that
the man from the War Department
came to this back door sixty years ago,
with his hat in his hand,
and eyes cast down,
came to tell herthat her beloved was dead.

Her eyes show sorrow, even as she smiles and waves
at my passing,
and for a brief moment,
an apparition of youth
in her gracefully aging face appears.

As I turn the corner,her image evaporates,
others come in view on my way home.

© Catfish Snuzie

Woman

Woman,
wrapped in your beauty,
your duty, the toss of your hair,
the twinkle in your eyes,
your lips stained rosy, waxed.
there is nothing you lack.

So fair your are, no heart thats pure,
but pure of sprit,
until the light of youth
departs from the face
that once turned men 's heads-
now dry and chaffed
In your grace, full bodied,
the mirror of life,
Your stitches saved nine.

© Catfish Snuzie