The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Vasiliki Albedo Bennu (Greece)

Published in issue 40 of The Ofi Press 

August afternoon under a plane tree in Athens

While I engage with my fudge sundae

she approaches with platitudes,

compliments, tells me I look

like that famous actress.

Jiggling a fake bump, she’s the fourth

seller to assail me: ‘ten children’

she says and extends

two waxy red roses out of her grimy blue bucket.

Roses I don’t want.

With my head in my book, I pretend

I don’t speak Greek, but she insists

points at my fingers on the page,  

jabbers about my fate.

Pivot of hand, eyes

hook. Her open, freckled face,

a sharp incisor puncturing her smile

remind me of my mother.

I pat her bump, buy her entire bunch.