On the Water, by Ashley Mabbitt

Harbor of Dieppe, by J.M.W Turner (UK). 1825.

On the Water

A question

shouted over
urns, baskets,
bundles of
cloth tied
tightly, 
a cage without
birds, and more
baskets floating
on the water;
as she
waits for
her mother
to answer
this question,
which she does
not know
is lost
to the squabbling
pigeons and
people trading
fish nets
and gossip,
her mother
notices her
daughter is,
this morning,
in the sun, 
a woman,
with fine
cheeks and
long fingers;
an expression
on her face, 
serious beyond her
years.

Ashley Mabbitt

Ashley Mabbitt lives in Brooklyn, NY and works in international STM publishing. Her poems have appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal and Avocet Weekly, and she studies poetry in workshops at the 92nd Street Y. She also studied with Ruth Stone and Liz Rosenberg as an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Binghamton.