Dirty Street

Fine young Somali girl this afternoon waiting for her lift opposite the café entrance. (Faisal’s cautionary comment was her youth; he has no real eye for the ladies.) Lovely in her warm colours, covered almost entirely, apart from the small oval of her exposed, only slightly fretful face. Checking her phone which she kept down at arm’s length. Pinks predominating in the low colour pulse—the headscarf and the detail of the body wrap. An old fashioned parchment cardigan, fully buttoned, hid her womanly form. More than anything else her posture expressed her loveliness, the deep and thorough settled being. In her free hand her dress clutched, hem lifted from the dirty street, the footpath edge where she waited which was especially dirty. Flat-footed, shifting her weight, impatience all minor key, restlessness subdued. From the position she had taken up she did not stray. Did not wander one way or the other. Chiefly movement was of the head and only toward the oncoming traffic, flat expression, never pursing her lips. Twenty minutes she might have stood in the same position and disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.