This woman who sits on airplanes,
Who eats too much chocolate,
Is loved in a generic way,
By a mother
And a father
Who haven't seen her
In seventeen months,
The cells in her body have mostly
Been replaced by new ones
Which look like the old ones
But must be worse
In almost imperceptible
But substantial ways
Because she
Like you
And everything else
Except some special jellyfish
Has an expiration date,
And her day of utmost beauty
And health
Caught her unawares.
She was busy translating
Ovid in a cold building with
Orange walls,
Under the watch
Of a failed scholar
With dry, yellow hair
Who knew little about life,
And nothing about love.
Sadness would resurface
Periodically
Like a toothache,
When she let her focus slip,
Which was rare except at night,
Since survival,
Back then,
Meant perfect grades,
And she very much wanted to live
Just in case things might get better
Eventually,
When she would surround herself
With books
And maybe people
That would both comfort
And excite her.
Once Ovid was conquered
She would slowly walk
Through resonating hallways
Towards the white-tiled restroom
Taking a detour first,
Acutely aware of the way her scarf
Fell on her shoulders,
Wondering if this time
She would get a glimpse of someone
Through a door left open
By a teacher who enjoyed a breeze,
Her hope unreasonable,
Since even if she did,
He would not have been looking,
He would not have noticed
That her beautiful blue scarf,
Which matched her hair so perfectly,
Was meant to suggest
Horse rides in the Sahara desert,
Like in that Italian TV series from the eighties.
Sixteen years later she's on her way to Helsinki
Sitting next to a flatulent man
Who eats beef bourguignon.
She's eating bread and butter,
She's forgotten to pre-order
Her vegetarian meal.
The boys who secretly admired her
At recess
Are musicians now
Or more likely dead,
Because how can somebody go on
Eating soup
Or tuning strings
After missing that moment
When a long warm glance
Of recognition
Could have changed everything,
Reversed the relentless
Flow from full to empty?
She would have shared her body
With them,
Laughed at herself for not doing it sooner
This mingling of minds and hopes and terrors,
A breathless, shivering clarity,
A new resolution forming,
The promise to let herself be seen,
As ugly as she felt.
Thanks to that glance
This woman,
Twice the age of that girl,
Would be writing a different poem today,
Or nothing at all,
She would maybe know better
Than clinging to this love for men who don't get her,
Compelled to reenact it
Until the spell is broken,
Holding on to the hope
Of an alternate ending.
She is doomed to be loved
Unconditionally
Only by sweet men she gets tired of
In a month
While the men she wants,
Playful, witty, but with an icy core that
She keeps mistaking for genius,
Admire her at first
But get tired of her intensity,
Suspect she might be nuts,
Hope she will leave them alone at last,
To their silly Texan girlfriends who do porn star tricks
(Why on earth does she need to know this?)
And laugh hysterically to the jokes she never gets
Because she was translating Ovid in Italy
When That guy said That thing
On American TV,
Or is it a hip-hop reference?
But really,
She might just not be funny
And she will always have
An accent,
Such an easy target for their cruelty
Once it's lost its charm,
Which happens on Week Two.
She's done this to herself,
This exile west,
So that feeling out of place
Would sound perfectly normal,
Her sudden lack of words
Justified,
And again tomorrow,
As she lands in Rome,
She has a convenient excuse,
It's her new life in America
That will set her apart,
Her familiarity with
Squirrels,
Bad Mexican food,
Automatic transmissions,
Nights spent at bars
As a shortcut to each other's
Softness,
Stumbling through Pilsen
To a basement full of rabbits,
Laying it all out,
Bodies quivering with lust,
Only to take everything back
In the morning
When they will walk
Through the city
Like enemies
And if only she -
If only he -
...
If only
He was struck by lightning
Or, as an alternative,
He begged for her forgiveness,
She could finally move on
And desire to kiss
The perfectly lovely guy
With Viking cheekbones
who will hand her
A latte
At Starbucks.
