Photo by Pablo Rebolledo on Unsplash

She sat in a grubby chair
in the shadowy corner of a boxy shop
on a back street, selling bottled water.
We counted pesos and walked away.
Her voice followed us, small voice, child voice.
We had miscounted, she needed more.

We gave her more with apology, and wanting confirmation
that our bottles were now paid for, I looked into her face.
My glance was only a moment but I remember her always.
she looked wispy as her voice, but she was no child.

A thousand lines comprised her dark-skin face,
which seemed about to sink into the folds of
a much-wrapped shawl. I know she smiled,
but her eyes were what held me.
Of jet their color, as jet their gleam
and in that, a sureness of old, old knowing.
In that brief glimpse, that meeting of eyes,
I though I saw the crone. I could not speak
with her, I did not know her language,
but I left her shop feeling light and sure.

Perhaps my grandmother knew the crone
That same bright warmth was in her eye.
And since she died I had not seen that look.
And now I found her sitting in a dirty box
beside a turquoise sea
in a place entirely strange to me.
Why do I keep this fanciful thought, that she’s
in me where I feel the gathering joys
of old womanhood?
I think in that moment of meeting
the crone saw me.