Tellers by Martha Christina

This morning's bank teller
is a chatty sub who tells
me she noticed, just
yesterday, some
new wrinkles. She
adds (and not happily):
I'm looking more like
my mother every day.

I'd be happy to join
the club of women
whose faces age into
our mothers', but I
favor my father's
older sister, a plain
woman who believed
herself a fortune teller.
Once, peering into my hand
she told me You will
age like your mother.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.