On Travel

Lentils, rice, Garlic Nan. White wine, a window
seat. His glasses don't have frames. Slender
wrists, he scoops Kosmari on our plates and
mmn, it isn't raining; it won't. It's peaceful here,
other parties quiet. Our waiter, calm and tired.
An hour can stretch so widely.

Unaccustomed to crossing rivers and oceans
with the ease he ascertains, with the vividness
of his history in a country only familiar to me
in the books that I have read, I am the one
who feels foreign in his scenes of Southern
Germany, university and medicine. Blonde
blue-eyed intelligentsia. My freckles land mines
of America—count them, the number of states
I've never been to, their ability to burn
and multiply without making contact with my
veins. How cocky I have been, how quickly
I would've told you only yesterday, "I know
this neighborhood pavement to rooftop,"
and yet never before had I so much as
glanced at this restaurant. This lovely,
provocative place.

I am telling someone else's story, I am
relying on that lyrical line I read in that
old, great book. He is looking at me with
curiosity, with what could be wonder
or disbelief. Crossing a border, moving
forward—clouds either part or break.

.