In the Park with Grandmother, Olsztyn, Poland 1981

for Babcia Wańdzia

Though she pulled it back into a bun
   black wisps of her hair haloed
      her face.

The hard blue sky behind her
   run through with a single white thread
      of a contrail.

Her skin was like walnut.
   With the sun behind her
      she smiled at me in her own shadow.

The silver plane
   preceded
      its sound.

First published in Residual Heat under my pseudonym Aga Black.