Compact

The uplifted unfolded phone
casts its lunar digital glow
on the face of the young woman pausing
to scan its screen before snapping
the microelectronics shut
the way my mother would close her compact,

that slim round clamshell
whose hard black plastic shallow halves
opened to offer a handy mirror
hinged to pressed powder
she’d deftly pad onto her tired turned cheeks
before hiding it in the purse with a click,

that vanity the size of a rotary’s slow dial”
a way to reach herself, a local call.