"..because the glue here is very inferior." -El Bishop, Arrival At Santos
Down the hill in a hurry(in a fast car with good suspension)
towards this slurred caretaker
from another building.
I can't tell if he's stupid or drunk
his son not correct either,
eyes too far apart, both of them.
He needs an advance, asks politely
why not? It is only a trip to Syria
today or tomorrow by bus
to bring back his wife, most likely
not correct either. Usually
a bit deformed as they all are,
these savages and Mohammedans,
a bit comic after a while.
They teach the boys to say
I love you you're beautiful
in English, to encircle your waist
in school marm gratitudes,
I love you mum you're beautiful.
They teach the girls to clean up
after you walk by, do a plastic curtsy
or fight with them to giggle,
slap their ears, say their prayers,
make themselves pretty invisible.
How much will this family cost me
I wonder and measure their legs
like tally marks, three boys and a girl,
only home on the weekends
from the orphan's school
where they send poor kids
willing to work on Saturdays. The toddler
will pick up a gum wrapper or two,
leave drool and the faint odor
of hard-washed diapers boiled
in a pot on the single-burner down there
in that room, that room that smells
of the last guy and softening onion.
I've not quite hired him or his kids
but it seems, I must.
We make our Beirut family like this,
pigeon languages and loans -
a strange part of the future
at the bottom of the hill, brakes just fine.
