Expatriation, Year One
Enemy of the anecdotal, birthplace unseen,
I enjoy a semiprivate movie stardom
in which only the sunglasses remain to me,
the occasional mimosa at brunch.
At thirty-three should the self still be
so frangible? How does one come this far
lacking the raw material needed for
the most basic human discourse?
Unmoored from my wife, at parties, I drift
toward the ben trovato (yes, yes, why not?),
the strangers’ gutturals like music to me.
Hs for Hs. Hs for Gs.
How to account for myself I’ve no idea.
My father was the same. Dead a year,
he still lives at home. He never was,
as my mother would say, “worldly.”
What we wouldn’t give for a second chance,
but at what exactly, and in what sense?
The world as it is demands particulars
independent of experience.