The mirror dominates the room
in the basement of the bar
This cramped ladies’ room
appointed for primping

Two women lean in
over sinks
Getting close
to who they see
Lipstick glides,
Concealer dabs

Muffled weeping from the middle stall
They pause,
cut eyes to each other,
frown
cap the lipstick,
snap the purses

High heels softly stepping out
as if to avoid sullying themselves
with sorrow
A burst of forced joviality
as the door yaws open and shut

The last stall door cracks open
A small woman appears
No need to glance in the mirror
She knows who she will see

yellowed white hair held back
with tortoise shell combs,
a gift from her dead husband
Sky blue eyes,
a gift from her mother
Parchment wrinkled skin,
a gift of time

Hearing the quiet crying
she raps gently at the door
It opens with a question

She offers open arms
an ancient gesture
Murmurings of comfort,
stroking of the hair

The kindness offered that night
is captured by the mirror
The story told,
how it unfolds,
Reflecting more than
what was seen

Diane DiGennaro has pounded keys all of her life.

She wrote stories on her mother’s IBM Selectric typewriter which sat for years on the dining room table in lieu of turkeys.

Truly, the typewriter provided more sustenance than her mother’s hot meals. She wrote for a feminist news quarterly as a teen. Her keystroke has lightened with each successive computer until she feels that the words are flying out on their own.

She has freelanced for PrimeTime Cape Cod, The Burlington Free Press (VT), the national magazines Adoptive Families and New Moon, as well as a plethora of parenting publications.

Diane wonders whether the keyboard will be obsolete before she completes her novel. Maybe she’ll just talk to a screen and it will spit out the tale. She’ll miss those keys, for sure; they’ve unlocked a great many secrets.