TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
(WHEN FINISHED TELLING ME ABOUT YOURSELF, SCROLL DOWN)
When I travel to Colombia, my mother’s home country
on an ordinary errand
I notice a shopkeeper calling me “my love” and spouses calling one another “my life”
the fast-forward jerks of my uncle’s movements and the way
two bodies cup as they dance salsa
differently on this part of the Caribbean coast than anywhere else in the world.
In rural Tennessee
where I was partially raised
certain southerners descant in buttery slow motion
while others’ nasal twangs crack like a stick.
Their interest in camouflage and rifles is impenetrable to me
obscene.
The Super Walmart with its disjointed zombies
and the banality of the strip.