The Chart

Says fifty-four-year-old obese Hispanic

female — I wonder if they mean the one

with long black braids, Peruvian, who sells

tamales at the farmers’ market, tells

me I’m too thin, I better eat; or is

she the Dominican with too much rouge

and almond eyes at the dry cleaner’s who

must have been so beautiful in her youth;

or maybe she’s the Cuban lady drunk

on grief who I’ve seen half-asleep, alone

as if that bench were only hers, the park

her home at last; or else the Mexican

who hoards the littered papers she collects

and says they are her “documents”; if not,

it could be that Colombian drug addict

whose Spanish, even when she’s high, is perfect;

or maybe it’s the one who never says

exactly where she’s from, but who reminds

me of my grandmother, poor but refined,

lace handkerchief balled up in her plump hand,

who died too young from a condition that

some doctor, nose in her chart, overlooked.