Look at any large family photo album and,
Sooner or later, some version of my mother
Will be looking back at you with sharp brown eyes
Over an unmistakable small nose. I am particularly fond
Of my mother when she was a Turkish woman
Posing at a typewriter in an Istanbul office
Around 1936 (anyone claiming to be my mother
Must be able to type accurately and with
Terrifying speed, her head turned a bit to the left
As she talks to whoever is in the room with her or,
If no one is, whoever is in the next room).
The mother I know best was 9 that year, in Brooklyn,
And would have been pleased to know another her
Was making her own way, taking no guff
And walking with her friends at dusk,
Standing in the shadow of the Galata Tower or seeing
What the Bosphorus was getting up to now.
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