day NINETY EIGHT

Americans Have a Special Kind of Empowered Look

Making our way through Paris,
my husband has left behind the baseball caps
that normally grace his head.

We’ve packed only plain t-shirts.

We keep the map folded, out of sight in my back pocket.

We speak in low, hushed tones
anxious about speaking English
and our American accents

and yet,
here he comes, in tight jeans, a small scarf,
his face shaved,
lithe, attractive,

crossing the wide open
space of the garden

points and says “Obama, ça va?”

He gives us a thumbs-up and a too loud laugh before passing.

--Ally Malinenko

(poem taken from Ally Malinenko's How to be an American available
on Six Gallery Press)