Waitress

One of the waitresses
                              at Berlin's Astoria Restaurant
                              was a jewel of a girl.
She'd smile at me across her heavy trays.
She looked like the girls of the country I've lost.
Sometimes she had dark circles under her eyes—
I don't know why.
I never got to sit
               at one of her tables.

He never once sat at one of my tables.
He was an old man.
And he must have been sick—
                                 he was on a special diet.
He could gaze at my face so sadly,
                                 but he couldn't speak German.
For three months he came in for three meals a day,
then he disappeared.
Maybe he went back to his country,
                                 maybe he died before he could.