Notes On The Trade Deficit

Back when I needed one, could find one
I did. Lydia who couldn't hear unless
it was her friend on the phone,
the other who used to lean out the window
and make bird noises to the other Phillipinas.
There was the big Ghana girl who slept
from 8 am to 4 and managed to tidy up a bit
before we'd breeze through the door after work,
nevermind my toddler on the sixth floor
balcony overlooking Olaya and all the rest.
Luckily, she got pregnant and I dismissed her,
for her own protection, oh dear.
I was terrified of her type of outsourcing.

Then there was Saba who, like all the Africans,
had more sisters and brothers
than you could shake a stick at.
Her lover Saed was her brother
who arrived on Thursdays to take her home,
yes right and then he married a prettier girl,
perhaps his other sister, those disguises
they all wore. The rings of slave labor
were as normal as anything. Saba was tough
though and didn't steal the jam. She thought
I said she did and we abused each other.
She potty trained my son and he never wet the bed.
Oh how the two of them got along...
her out on the playground spoon feeding him
a Mussolini special, God those Eritreans
make wonderful spagetti! She was a keeper.
And minced no words when she thought she was wronged.

There was a string of them between the playground
in Malaz and September Eleventh. A half dozen
or so part-time free lancers who owed
someone something all the time. A masssive
syndicate of borrowing and thieving when possible.
One of them stole all my daughter's training panties.
Made in America and just can't find them anywhere
in the third world. No one makes training pants
like an American, no one. But then there was Yoly.

Yoly would answer the bell downstairs and I'd say,
"Abu Sayyef!" The first time Yoly was a bit shaken.
The other times we just laughed and laughed.
Yoly was too old to be a maid servant really.
As life would have it though, Yoly was married
to a good for nothing. Yoly had a late in life baby.
Yoly had to pay for college once again and travelled
from the Phillipines so I could tease her in Riyad,
Abu Sayyef!
He's down here and wants to come up!