This is a poem I wrote during the Colorado Writing Project in 2014.
Learning the Language
France, 2011
I stepped off the train
amused. France, for only a few hours,
Breil sur Roya, a small village in the Alps.
France. That’s apparently where you end up
when you run for the wrong train.
South Africa, 1995
I lost my voice in a university pub
captivated, the famous World Cup Rugby match against New Zealand,
a game that Mandela needed. He needed them to win.
The world watched, many Afrikaners turned their backs
as a black person–finally–played among the Springboks.
The edge of our seats, overtime,
sudden death, South Africa’s point.
Chairs flew, men streaked,
and I learned one meaning of the toyi toyi as it echoed
through the streets, through the night.
Vietnam, 2005
We stood outside our house
giddy, the downpour in the dark a remedy for the heat,
the Vietnamese woman on the bike so perplexed
that we saw no need for her one-dollar
paper-thin ponchos.
Morocco, 2011
I sat in the taxi
cramped, the second of five legs in my journey that day,
I sat half on the lap of a large dark-skinned woman,
avoiding the stick shift
as the man (one of four) in the back mourned the passing
of Michael Jackson, finally, with someone (me, the American),
someone who would understand.
A Michael Jackson impersonator
(he looked nothing like him)
he once scored a front row ticket.
It was so strange, he said, that he idolized Michael,
but Michael didn’t recognize him.
Iceland, 2012
We drove away from the glacier on the ribbon of highway
ready. Okay, we decided, we’ll pick up
the next hitchhikers we see.
We hesitated when we saw them
all their belongings and the big bushy beard.
But he serenaded us with his guitar
from the back seat
after he talked of elves.
Ecuador, 2003
We trekked up a dormant volcano
hopeful, for maybe a glance at Tungurahua,
“Throat of Fire,” the active one,
but it eluded us behind clouds.
Manuel with a machete
invited us for tea.
We didn’t understand him, except for his laugh
and the part about Clinton and Monica.
Morocco, 2011
I walked past the king’s palace
purposeful, my last night in Marrakech,
toward my riad in the alley.
I exited the citadel, the towering walls, and
they began to follow me, four men.
Aware, always aware, I paused at a stall,
convenient, at the corner.
They passed. I breathed and resumed my way
but I hadn’t paused long enough.
Maybe I should have shouted?
There they were in the shadowed zig-zag maze of my alley
four in a row, close enough to touch.
I turned, glared. I warned: “Dégage!” the French line I’d practiced, Back Off!
As quietly as they appeared, they turned, they vanished,
just as the owner of the riad had promised.
South Africa, 1995
I ventured with my pottery instructor
intrigued, deep into the dry, not-quite-flat country of KwaZulu-Natal.
She’d hunted it for years, this old but elusive Zulu technique.
Hot on the trail (but was it the right trail?),
we hesitated our way through unconventional directions,
a right-turn at the 17th abandoned utility pole (did we count right?),
a left at the rusted, kind-of-still-a-car.
Yes, said a family, we know who you’re looking for,
here’s our boy (he was maybe six?), he’ll take you there.
We were the first white people
the old woman sitting on her haunches had ever seen.
She eyed me up and down, she nodded and spoke.
The boys–teenagers–cackled.
She wanted to know how many cattle, they said,
my father would want in exchange for me.
Iceland, 2012
I ran alongside the placid river
lighthearted, startled by her emphatic, screeching dive.
Too close to her nest, I realized,
hollered my apologies.
Dive number two: closer, louder, screechier.
I clued in, spun, covered my head, and fled,
still repentant.
Maybe she was not quite ready to forgive,
or maybe it was just to chastise,
but that last, masterful dive was most histrionic.
She knew her job, that protective, so impressive, arctic tern.
Spain, 2011
I was sitting at a small, sunny hotel breakfast with
anticipation, and I met Johann.
His friends were my friends that night.
Tango, preceded by shandies,
followed by a decadent–precious–night as old Italian smiling men kept
the red wine and for-once-affordable tapas flowing across the bar.
Shifting from French to Spanish to English to French to Spanish,
we were trying,
enjoying the trying, and laughing.
Learning the Language 