Baba's Face

Carmella de Keyser

Baba's face resembles railroad tracks that disappear into each other.

Like an Escher woodcut.

I can look at it for hours…

She has been perma- sketched by early dawns in the Balkan sun.

Grooming her garden,

Twisting cucumbers away from their tender climbing.

When she smiles, three more lines crack open - from each of the sides of her cinnamon eyes.

As her lips downturn again, the motifs across her face are filled with wholesome flesh, plumped up by ‘baklava’, ‘tulumba’ and ‘revani’.

She has toiled for her whole life and her skin is all stories.

My reflection has no novellas,

Or folk tales,

Or kneeling in the early womb of the teeming soil,

It’s colder than hers, has lived in colder climates,

My cheeks are just smooth, mirthless ice, from my urban, convenient life.

Yet for a moment -

Drawn in, by her flare, and her gaze,

Her face warms mine.