The woman with the styrofoam cup and no teeth
sits all day at the taxi rank and is a local identity
The driver tells me this in his practised monologue
tells me she lost everything in the war
was forced to grow vegetables for soldiers
slave labour, you know –
How she had nothing
but when the Russians came
she lost everything all over again
How do you lose nothing?
I think about asking, but he's still
talking about her sitting there
with her no teeth, her free cup of coffee,
and her swearing, so I can't help but float
to my mother, her new teeth
and my grandmother's face
how I recognise it now
in the shape of my mother
except she must have been
there all along, staring
at me from a remove,
like the vacant blue sky
with its constance of stars or that
woman with her everything
and her nothing
all over again.
