She effortless, bored, fifteen?
A texting prodigy
In plum-apple polish, flying over her instrument
2 talk 2 who knows who (lol)
Me sweaty and doughy and ash-gray
Not on a walk but a battle march
The forty-something-feminine genius
Not knowing a thing
I smile, exhaling something that sounds like
“My sister, my friend, hello”
But I am not her sister, her friend,
Mother, or even distant cousin
I am a foreigner with a foreign tongue
Sicilian or Parisian to her
Congolese, New Delhian, Shawnee
Or perhaps something else entirely;
Perhaps she hears the sound of snake or clicking beetle
Or something she dissected last week in biology class
At any rate, mine is a language
She does not understand
And it frightens her
My downturned eyes offer, mea culpa
For I chose to smile
She did not recognize me (nor want to)
The woman I am
The woman she will be
In thirty years time
