I wait at the far end of the counter,
phone in hand, staring at pixels
that came to me from all over the world.
Annoyed, I flick to the next screen.
These sandwiches are taking forever.
A woman dressed in too many layers
for the summer stands beside me.
With that strange sense honed by generations
of evolution, I know she’s watching.
I glance up. She smiles, her front teeth
long gone. Uncertain, I smile back.
I think it must be strange for her—
the phones, the internet, the whole damn world.
Does she understand what a marvel it all is?
She says, in halting English, “You have pretty
smile. Don’t lose.” Her dark eyes wander
over me. How much have they seen? I realize
she understands exactly what a marvel it all is.
Old Woman in a Cuban Bakery by Coral Moore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.