Longer

Change

Quito, Ecuador 2000

I passed an indigenous woman in the street today,

And I did not know her name,

But I named her indigenous,

And her soul flew out from behind her eyes to curse me.

I did not give her the quarter and three cents I had in my pocket,

Because I knew she would hate me,

Whether or not I gave her the money.

(And I knew I would hate myself, whether or not I gave her the money.)

She did not know me, but she named me gringa.

(A woman who walks with her legs wide open and her purse sewed up.)

What’s more,

She named me North American,

And I could feel the hot syllables of hate

Scribbled across my back as I

Walked and walked and

Pretended and pretended

To feel nothing.

And the change in my pocket whispered, angrily

Against my thigh.

Istanbul, Turkey September 2009

City of swagger and

feral cats crying and

city of steep streets and

matchstick houses leaning;

city of cigarettes

and hungry dogs howling,

city, city of stone;

foundations crumbling.

Cincinnati 2001
Over-the-Rhine

At the corner store on
Race and Liberty
they sell fried pork skin;
flesh tastes flesh singeing.
Muscles, tense, pop and crackle under
withered arm hair.
Baked-over-eyes cauterize each day to each other day
the days stretch out in time
an unfurlingspikedtonguesidewalk
a red carpet of hot coals.
There are no trees here
there is no breeze here
there are only concretebrickwalls of
grey and brown
and angry, angry voices calling
for it to all
Burn
Down.

Japan 2002

O-Bon
It is dusk it is O-Bon
the Japanese light lanterns across our small town

and burn incensein the graveyards
to call the dead spirits home.
I crouch on my fifth floor balcony
the highest building in town
and light my third cigarette
the small flame of the lighter
a brief homing beacon
guiding no one home.
At last, after a few whiskeys
I crawl to bed across the straw tatami mats
under the pink sheet
breath raising and lowering the thin cotton I forgot to close the shoji paper screen and
the dead make their way in.
Silently, politely, in straight file
they kneel, one by one, at the foot of my bed
and whisper:
‘Gaijin, gaijin
Oyanasuminasayiiiiiiii’
Outsider, Outsider
Sleep well.
And I dream of home
of the day I die, when I will look to the west
and I will hope there is no foreign wind
and I will pray there is someone to call me home.