Pensioner

For twenty years she ran a restaurant.
Now she forgets that she's told
me already. She came here sixty years
ago with her husband, "Before they were old,"

she says; and I remember the place
and tell her so, which pleases her.
She tells me again about the kids
of the district, how poor they were,

that she'd give them money sometimes
if they asked. A restaurant in a back
alley opposite a dance hall
that's now a restaurant: black

walls, black music, and a name
that changed every year or so;
and across the way a small eatery
with lace curtains where others would go.

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