Native Woman

Her hair back from the wide round face flows, almost a girl’s, so thick, caught back in combs, racing and curling through them with blackest vigor, although it is pure white. Cracked face, dusk-colored: not red but with a deep red struggling under the coming night. The eyes shift quickly, the subway train jerks and rattles, green vinyl, light flickering, silver poles. Eyes driven from ancient calm, which may fear but is never frantic and says nothing, such as looks out from the old Indian portraits—calm is the one thing missing from the beauty of her face in the black window. Those unresting eyes there talk plainly: there’s no money at home, men young and old go wrong, life almost at its end is still day by day harried and perplexed.