Every day, in the refurbished cafe,
I am stopped by the gold-edged photo
of the city before my birth— 
the now-vanished tracks 
engraved deep in that ground, 
elm trees lining both sides of the road, 
branches like sunlit swords tipped to honor 
those passing under. 

The trolley will round the corner 
to carry my grandmother in her brown silk 
Saturday hat, netting swooped like tiny birds 
across her face. She is younger than I am, 
a bride from the old country, 
she holds my six-year-old mother¹s hand. 
My mother¹s almond eyes are sheened with delight— 
more and more English rises slowly through her Greek. 

They will ride the nine miles downtown, 
to the Riverside Theatre— 
Katharine Hepburn in Little Women
on the bright marquee—
it will be my favorite story fifty or more 
years from here, but for now, no one 
has even dreamed of me. The picture
is that complete.