The Woman at Central Park

I told her I stole the glasses from my mother

who she commended to have great taste

and then she said no one in her family lived to be 90.

It could be worse

I told her,

she was blessed

to see the lake from her window,

to live on 72nd street since the age of 17.

I wanted to ask what led her feet here,

if the woman sitting next to her,

entreated by a phone, the same one

who complained this 90 year-old nagged

in abundance was her daughter-in-law.

Instead she asked                     what do you do

for a living?

I told her I was a poet.

The lake doesn’t make me any younger,

your balance sways when you get older.

I agreed. She asked if I would return

the glasses. I told her I would.

You're a good child she said,

pulling her cart full of tangerines away.