Lillian in the City

by Amy Soricelli
 
 
My mother ate alone but not in small French cafes
with happy waiters, just in a side-street diner 
on Madison and 35th, before the bus came.
 
She would hold her menu far enough to see
over the smaller families pushing in chairs, and
arranging their coats on empty seats beside them.
She watched them pick and carry their small chatter,
 
pointing to cardboard slips of paper and napkin holders.
All the children with their feet up beside them, curled under
like tube snakes.  
 
The waiter would take her order, small 
coffee black, and a round pastry, but not covered in nuts 
or cream; can I just have something very plain,
maybe with nothing at all. What can you show me? 
 
An attractive, elderly couple shuffle their umbrellas and 
New York Times onto the floor so they can sit too
close to her table, my mother thinks, as the street
 
carries its sounds through the front door and settles,
a sleepy cat by her feet.  She hears them talk about 
the gallery they just visited, him not liking anything at all,
finding the art rough and distracting.  His wife looks away 
 
and picks lint off her sleeve. She smiles at my mother
as the waiter places a small croissant before her. 
Yes, yes, this is fine, my mother says, and stirs her coffee 
 
though she added nothing.  The children at the next
table are singing songs from a musical that no one 
remembers the name to. The croissant is light and
airy, the coffee is just deep enough, and there is nothing 
 
better than this solitude, she thinks, as she says, 
how's Klimt for distracting? to the couple who have now 
pulled their chairs closer to join her.


* * * * *

"Lillian in the City" was previously published in That Plane is not a Star (dancing girl press 5/2024)

Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications and anthologies including Remington Review, The Westchester Review, Deadbeats, Long Island Quarterly, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Pure Slush, Cider Press Review, Glimpse Poetry Magazine, and many others. That Plane is not a Star, 4/2024, Dancing Girl Press; Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021; Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. Nominations: Pushcart Prize, 2021, Best of the Net 2020, 2013. Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer's Fellowship/2019, Grace C. Croff Poetry Award, Herbert H Lehman College, 1975