My lover's mother reaches her thick, dark arm across dark wood surfaces...the coffee table with two shelves, molded to old classical tastes where several old scratches numbered days when jews climbed her attic ladder into the insulation polluted their souls... my lover's mother's dark face is happy and joyful...her eyes are dark but her face is so upturned by her gracious, thin, dark-lipped smile. My lover's mother moves her pink piece on the board with solid gesture: she reached her short arm over the coffee table to clutch her small pin substitute. A gleaming reflector of ceiling light pin...it shimmered as my lover's mother picked it up into the air in quick motion to slam it onto the monopoly square of boardwalk. Her ribbon shook itself, wobbling back and forth on her space and my lover's mother said she'd buy it.