there is this woman who has come in
a few times to the community centre
where i work

and she has blonde hair and
blue eyes
like me
like my mother

and she asks me to fill up a
bucket with hot water
so that she can wash her hair
and she keeps all of her
belongings in a shopping
cart that she watches like a mother
hawk
because, she tells me, she is an
artist and one day all of her
paintings were stolen

and we talk art
and for a moment the huge gaping
chasm between us
is closed

and i can understand where she is coming from
free of awkwardness and guilt and worry

Last week she brought me
a mobile
made of driftwood and painted
fish
she said she found it
and it reminded her of me
and that she would keep it
but her cart is not big enough

and then she asked me if i would bring her shampoo
for the next time
and i feel myself tottering on the rickety bridge built between us