bigger than my stomach, she says, and pushes the cake up and away, and i take it with me, back to the kitchen. she hunches a little, eyes dropping into her coffee, into the wide shoulders of her purple jumper. when i brought it to her, she was resting her old hands on the table, like a prize that she had won. she opened them, and took the things i gave her, in a way that catches my breath. the overlap of age and youth. she gets up to leave a little later, and comes over to me. i touch her arm and she touches mine, and there is something there, a communion of skins, the added up weight of time and breath, the years we have lived together. she comes and leaves alone, in the way that she is living.

two couples at a table toast with water glasses, and then, later, the hand of one of the men is in the hair of one of the women. it is the smallest and most intimate of things, a gesture and an embrace. i wonder if that will be something that i have, when i am smaller than i am, when i am wrinkled.

this place is filled with families today, small legs braced inwards to tables, heads on shoulders, hands curled around things. there are feet on chairs and a solid space that is filled up with the sounds of living, the argumentative confluence of life. i know you, they say. i know you. the little girl cries real tears and she is hoisted to the hip of her papa, and, carrying his face, they go outside, to the place where the air is. there are moments, like this, everyday. she spreads all of her food all over the table, the floor, the chair, almost none of it in her mouth at all, and i laugh at the stories of picking lentils, slurping soup. this is something i haven't chosen for myself, the magnification of noise, the weariness of eating, the joy of your own eyes in someone elses. it is a magnificent thing, living.