Between Two Rivers

A rhetorical answer to a rhetorical question.

It was over not when I met
his eyes through the camera
(that round aperture a miracle
of border crossing, a compact 

stand-in for the sheer weight
of water separating our bodies),
but when I watched his face
speak the words in another

tongue to his question: I’m
against internationalization;
convince me otherwise. 
I knew it was an exercise—

they all are—and still I could
not summon the courage in his
tongue—the one I was made
to speak—or mine—the one

behind my own face meeting
his white one through the lens—
to stem the rising empty tide,
to untwist the tightening hard

knot in my chest and say:
I learned your tongue; shaped
mine to match its cadence
the moment I stepped off

that fateful flight three years
ago; mastered the accent,
the conjugations, the strange
differences in spelling, even

the occasional interjection.
There is no present like ours
without internationalization,
without the brave crossing of 

borders---for when is a crossing
never brave?---or the meeting  
of faces like ours. There would be 
no present worth speaking of.

But no; it was an exercise, and 
so I sighed and sputtered some
answer in his tongue, glancing
to the side, tripping over one word

after another, until I saw my 
face again on screen—my tongue in 
motion; how pale it looked—and smiled. 
“Well, I hope you’re convinced.”